Return to Transcripts main page
CNN This Morning
Christie to Announce 2024 Bid; Margaret Talev is Interviewed about Chris Christie; Neil deGrasse Tyson is Interviewed about the Space Race. Aired 8:30-9a ET
Aired May 31, 2023 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[08:30:00]
JAMES COMEY, AUTHOR, "CENTRAL PARK WEST": This person I love tremendously, like all my children. So that made it really fun.
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: A lot of women have been a part of this book. Not only your daughter, but as I understand it, your wife is your biggest critic and some of her criticism doesn't come face to face, it comes at night when you're asleep in a Google Doc?
COMEY: Thank God. She's also my biggest fan I think -- I hope she would say. Yes, she is my -
HARLOW: Constructive criticism.
COMEY: Exactly. Loving and devastating at the same time. But she is my partner. And she tells me the truth when it's good and when it's not so good. And luckily it's often in the form of a Google Doc comment or suggestions so I can go through the stages of denial before I accept that she's right.
HARLOW: But she helps you coming up with the plots, right?
COMEY: Yes, she's our idea person. She has great story vision. And my job is to write it and then get good feedback from people who love me about whether it's good or not.
HARLOW: The next one is already almost done?
COMEY: Yes, in draft. It's out for loving feedback with family members.
HARLOW: Loving feedback always.
Director Comey, appreciate you weighing in on the news, your career and congratulations on your new book.
COMEY: Thank you. It's great to be with you.
HARLOW: Good to have you.
Erica. ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Chris Christie set to jump into the race for
the White House as this GOP field continues to get more crowded by the day. How could that Christie hat (ph) shake things up? We'll discuss.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:35:13]
HILL: This just into CNN. We are learning former New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie will announce his bid for the White House next week.
CNN correspondent Omar Jimenez joining us now with details.
So we noted the announcement is next week. What more do we have in terms of details this morning?
OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so, as we understand, I'm hearing from multiple sources that Tuesday is the day that he is going to announce a bid for 2024, the White House, at least the primary. There's a big field here.
HILL: Yes.
JIMENEZ: But I've heard from just speaking to many people in his camp, he really feels his lane is not around Trump but specifically through Trump. So, one of their main priorities is to try and get on that debate stage because Christie feels that he will be the one to actually have the message that breaks through, you know, again a crowded cast that we're seeing already.
And I did just get notification of some of an event notification for next week. Curiously, the same day as the announcement which is, as we understand, set to take place in New Hampshire in a town hall format at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at St. Anselm College.
And, again, he because just the latest Republican to jump into this race and try to take down the person we've seen lead the polls to this point, President Trump.
HILL: That pool is very crowded this morning.
JIMENEZ: Yes, it is. Yes, it is.
HILL: Omar, appreciate it. Thank you.
JIMENEZ: Of course.
HARLOW: Thank you very, very much.
Joining us now to dig a little deeper, "Axios" senior contributor Margaret Talev.
Margaret, good morning.
MARGARET TALEV, SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR, "AXIOS": Good morning. HARLOW: I keep thinking about the book "Bear Hunt." Did you ever read this to your kids?
HILL: We're going on a bear hunt?
HARLOW: We're going on a bear hunt.
HIL: Yes.
HARLOW: You can't go around it. You can't go over it. You've got to go through it.
HILL: Got to go through it.
HARLOW: It sounds like Chris Christie's trying to go through Trump. How do you do that?
TALEV: Well, you know, he does have, I guess, the benefit of some practice from the last time around eight years ago. But we're seeing a couple things. One is that this field is getting increasingly crowded. That could help Trump. At least that's the conventional wisdom and it makes sense.
But I think what you're seeing, Christie has a much harder path because the party has changed so much just since the 2016 campaign. The core of the Republican Party, the base, moving much farther to the right, being much more targeted towards the working class, the anti- elite, the anti-college, the anti-business to some extent, the anti- Chamber of Commerce, the anti-globalist.
Chris Christie, a coastal governor. He's an institutionalist. Remember, he was once a U.S. attorney and he believes in American business. So, it's a harder path.
But I think if you look at both what Christie and Governor DeSantis are doing, they are both pledging to punch and counterpunch Donald Trump. They're doing it in really different ways. Christie wants to be talking to what he calls an exhausted majority. He's talking about not just Republicans, but independents and maybe some conservative Democrats. Ron DeSantis is aiming to right of Donald Trump, trying to push the party further to the right, trying to say Trump is too woke, look at some of his policies on, you know, criminal prison reform and criminal justice policies.
So, they're really, really different approaches to punching Trump, but at least now we're seeing a couple of brand name contenders in the GOP primary saying they're not going to shy away from attacking the former president.
HILL: So he's not going to shy away from attacking him. I'm sure we'll hear a lot about - we will see all of his comments from his evolution over the years, over the last eight years or so for, again, again, for.
When we look at that lane, though, Margaret, that you're painting there, this lane of, you know, Chris Christie wanting to go after the former Republican Party, essentially former Republican voters, the one that used to be, as well as independents, perhaps some Democrats, is there that lane?
TALEV: I mean it's a big question and you're not seeing a lot of other GOP contenders, or would be contenders, courting that lane. You know, you're seeing Tim Scott, also new to the race, talk about he wants to have an optimistic campaign. Chris Christie wants it to be a joyful campaign. But who are the voters you're trying to bring in? Are you trying to tell people who actually are now independents, hey, switch back to the Republican Party to vote in your state's primary? Are you trying to reactivate a nascent part of people who are still registered as Republicans but are like I don't - I don't really know what's going on here, and say there's still a home for you? Those seem to be the two lanes. If you're going to tie Trump to Vladimir Putin, if you're going to say that - if you're going to focus on January 6th and trying to overturn, you know, a democratically elected election, that is not a brand that's synonymous with an appeal to the base.
But Christie's bet, I think, is that there are actually still a lot of Republicans or voters who lean Republican who are more attracted to his message but they need an alternative to rally around. It is a long shot. It is not an easy path.
HARLOW: It's also just so interesting to see him running through, that's what he's going to do, Trump when he was the first really establishment Republican to legitimize Trump in 2016.
HILL: Yes.
[08:40:05]
HARLOW: Quite a shift.
Thank you, Margaret.
TALEV: Thanks.
HARLOW: Overnight, the SpaceX capsule carrying a former NASA astronaut and three paying customers comes home, returns from the International Space Station, look at this, splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico. We'll talk about the latest on the space race with the renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. He's here next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: AX2 is back on earth.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: Love it. All that applause because, well, this is your "Morning Moment," splashdown. A SpaceX capsule carrying a former NASA astronaut and three paying customers came home from the International Space Station, splashing down off the coast of Panama City. It is only the second all-private mission to the ISS. That as a Chinese rocket launched from earth to their own space station yesterday carrying the country's first civilian astronaut into orbit.
Let's talk about all this and a lot more with world-renowned astrophysicist and director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History here in New York City, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson.
[08:45:05]
Also the author of "Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization."
Good morning.
DR. NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON, ASTROPHYSICIST: Hi. Thanks for having me. Thank you.
HILL: Good to see you.
HARLOW: Let's start with - we've been talking about China a lot this morning and now in space, too, obviously, in the space race, launching and working to put more pressure, I suppose, on NASA to put humans on course to walk the moon by 2025, two years away. Does this increase the pressure on NASA, what China is doing?
TYSON: Well, it certainly does. Of course. How could we think not?
HARLOW: Right.
TYSON: And just look at the rebirth of our interest in returning to the moon with the Artemis program, which, by the way, not everyone knows yet. I mean some people know, of course. And Artemis is the twin sister of Apollo. And so NASA was like woke early in this effort.
HILL: Be careful throwing that word around.
TYSON: That's right. That's right.
But the - you know, we could have stayed on the moon in 1972. We didn't. We could have gone back in 1980 or 1990 or 2000 or 2010. No. We have rejuvenated our lunar space program right around the time when China says that's what they want to do.
So, who are we kidding if we're going to say, oh, we're just doing it because we -- it's time to do it again. No, we -- there are forces operating out there that rival a little bit what we felt back in the space race with the Soviet Union.
So, that's just the reality. To stand in denial of it would be naive.
HILL: So, as we wait, as we watch for all that to play out, as we see if it will happen, by 2025 and in terms of the moon, I was really fascinated, the James Webb Telescope.
TYSON: Oh.
HILL: I love it any time we get a little nugget. TYSON: It is all that.
HILL: All that and more.
TYSON: It is all that and more.
HILL: So now it's observed a donut of water, as I understand it, around Saturn, beyond the rings. What does this actually mean? What is the donut of water?
TYSON: Well, just to say the search for water is a major objective of NASA because every place on earth we find water, we find life. Even the Dead Sea. It was called the Dead Sea because no one then had microscopes or the James Webb Space Telescope. Yes. So, if you -- if we know that life and water go together, and we want to find life elsewhere, you're going to look for water any place you can find it, in any shape, form, always.
So, these outer planets, so not only Jupiter, but Saturn as well, there are conditions there that can support water. And in many cases it's frozen on the surface of moons, but then it's liquefied inside because the moons are stressed by the tidal forces of the main planet and other moons. And it's like when you hit a racquetball. They say, let's warm up the ball. You're literally warming up the ball by stressing it and popping it back into shape. That's what's happening with the moons in the outer solar system, which renders what would otherwise be frozen water liquid.
So, when you find water in the outer solar system, it widens the net that you cast in your search for life.
HARLOW: Can we talk about what we're seeing in New York that apparently everyone knew about except for me? Manhattanhenge.
HILL: You know about it now.
TYSON: You've got to get - you've got to get out more.
HARLOW: Now.
TYSON: You've got to get out more.
HARLOW: That is the truest statement of the morning.
TYSON: I'm just saying. I don't - you know, I - yes, so a couple - there it is. Yes, Manhattanhenge.
HARLOW: OK.
TYSON: Yes, so -
HARLOW: What is it?
HILL: Did you coin that term?
TYSON: I -- what's that? HARLOW: What is it?
TYSON: You - yes, I -
HARLOW: I mean we know it's the sun but like -
TYSON: I coined that term. Yes.
HARLOW: Yes.
TYSON: And it's now in the Oxford English Dictionary, I'm happy to say.
HARLOW: Wow.
TYSON: Yes, it's like an official - they're not official until that happens, you know?
HILL: This isn't. yes, not just the Urban Dictionary, in the Oxford English Dictionary.
TYSON: Exactly. Exactly. Because anything's in the Urban Dictionary.
But on two occasions a year, around Memorial Day and I timed this up with baseball's all-star break. That's what -- I found these on the calendar. On those two occasions, the sun sets exactly on the grid of Manhattan. And it makes for spectacular sunsets.
Sunsets are beautiful regardless. Now you frame them with the steel and glass structures of the city. Thousands of people now crowd the streets.
And I'm delighted to announce we finally stopped traffic for reasons other than Con Ed digging holes, or police activity.
So, if the universe can call to us that way, it's just a reminder that we are participants in a great unfolding of cosmic events is how I think about it.
HILL: A great unfolding of cosmic events.
HARLOW: I love that.
HILL: Love it.
HARLOW: Before you go, since you have a term in the Oxford English Dictionary --
TYSON: I don't mean to brag or anything like that.
HARLOW: Can we also get your best -
HILL: Humble brag.
HARLOW: This is CNN THIS MORNING. Because you were doing it in the commercial and it was pretty darn great. TYSON: Oh. This is CNN THIS MORNING.
HARLOW: There you go. That's all you need to know.
HILL: Right.
HARLOW: Hired! Hired!
HILL: All right.
HARLOW: Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, what a pleasure. Thank you.
TYSON: Thank you. Welcome to the universe.
HARLOW: Thank you.
[08:50:01]
Also great.
HILL: Even better.
HARLOW: Also great.
HILL: All right, what are you going to do when you come back tomorrow?
Thank you.
HARLOW: All right, thanks very much.
TYSON: Take care.
HARLOW: Fiery new comments from seven-time NBA all-star Scottie Pippen, criticizing his former Chicago Bulls teammate Michael Jordan. Why he says Jordan was, quote, a horrible player.
HILL: Wow.
HARLOW: Got to be some context in that one.
HILL: I think so.
Plus, watch this.
(VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: Nope, not a remake for "The Dukes of Hazard," nothing for "Grand Theft Auto." An actual car, as you see it there, sort of catapulting itself off the back of a tow truck. Stay tuned for what happened next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARLOW: Well, this one had our control room gasping I am told. New video this morning shows a shocking car -- look what happens in Georgia.
[08:55:04]
It looks like it's a scene out of "Dukes of Hazard."
Watch this.
(VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: So wild.
HARLOW: See what I mean? You can see police were already responding to a crash on the highway when this car suddenly went airborne after ramping off the back of a tow truck. The car somehow landed upright and deputies then rushed to help the woman who was driving the car. It is reported that she survived. We don't know her condition. Obviously, we're keeping a close eye on this. But we do know she survived, thank goodness.
HILL: That video is really something.
So, this one also has everybody talking, both on set and in the control room. The Chicago Bulls won six NBA championships between 1990 and 1998. Arguably the best run in U.S. sports history. A run spearheaded by Michael Jordan considered by many to be the best basketball player of all-time. But let's be honest, impossible to achieve without a Robin to his Batman. That is Scottie Pippen. Pippen, speaking on his former Bulls' teammate, Stacey King's podcast "Give Me The Hot Sauce" on Friday, oh, brought some hot sauce, describing Jordan as, quote, horrible to play with.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCOTTIE PIPPEN, NBA HALL OF FAMER: Like I seen Michael Jordan play before I came to play with the Bulls. You guys seen him play. He was a horrible player. He was horrible to play with. He was all one-on-one. He's shooting bad shots. And all of a sudden we become a team and we start winning. Everybody forgot who he was.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: Well, Pippen appeared to double down on his comments with this Instagram post of himself and the caption, writing, quote, from humble beginnings to six championships, two gold medals, Hall of Fame and leading the Bulls franchise with the most playoff wins. Here's to the unsung heroes. Cheers.
Pippen says Jordan, early in his career, had a passion for scoring, not winning.
Jordan has not commented.
HARLOW: That's really interesting. It always takes a team.
HILL: Yes.
HARLOW: You only win when you're a good team.
HILL: It does. Same is true in TV, right?
HARLOW: That's why I'm glad you're here.
HILL: This is a team sport for sure.
HARLOW: For sure.
We're glad you're with us today. We'll see you right back here tomorrow.
"CNN NEWS CENTRAL" is after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
