Return to Transcripts main page

CNN This Morning

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Meet with President Biden and Members of Congress to Ask for More Funding in War against Russian Invasion; U.S. Officials Urge Israeli Military to Reduce Civilian Casualties in Gaza; CNN Republican Presidential Town Hall with Ron DeSantis, Giuliani on GA Election Workers: "I Told the Truth", Harvard's Claudine Gay will Remain University's President. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired December 12, 2023 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: -- lecture at the so-called university of aggression gets the message loud and clear. Putin most lose.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. In the next hour, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy will meet with senators pleading for more war funding. Why he says doing nothing is a win for Putin.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: And House Republicans are set to meet as they plan to formalize their impeachment inquiry into President Biden with a House vote this week. This despite any direct evidence, at least at this point, of wrongdoing by the president.

HARLOW: Also, in about 30 minutes we will get a key inflation reading for the month of November. How those numbers could factor into what the Fed does with rates tomorrow.

This hour of CNN THIS MORNING starts now.

And here is where we begin with a live look at Capitol Hill where Ukrainian President Zelenskyy will arrive any moment. He will be making a last-ditch plea to Congress to stop stalling and approve billions in additional aid in their fight against Russia. Lawmakers are deadlocked, though, right now, and time is running out quickly to try to reach a deal before they go home for the holiday.

MATTINGLY: In just one hour Zelenskyy will enter the United States capital speak to the entire Senate. Later he has meetings with President Biden at the White House, House Speaker, the Republican Speaker Mike Johnson. Zelenskyy will be facing a much colder reception from Republicans compared to less than one year ago when he received this hero's welcome. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: That was December of last year when a joint session of Congress gave Zelenskyy a standing ovation during his first visit of the war. He received an American flag from then Speaker Nancy Pelosi. CNN's Lauren Fox is live on Capitol Hill. Lauren, it is such a different moment. Some Republicans are saying Zelenskyy's visit won't change anything at all in terms of their opposition to additional aid.

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this is an impassioned plea, obviously, from Ukraine's president as he arrives on Capitol Hill this morning, and lawmakers are staring down what may be their last week in Washington before they depart for the holiday recess. And they are, at this point, Phil, no closer to getting more aid approved. And that is because of a domestic policy quagmire over the southern border as Republicans and Democrats remain deeply divided. There's still a lot of daylight between what both sides would be willing to accept when it comes to strengthening U.S. border policy on the southern border.

And right now, Zelenskyy is unlikely to change those dynamics, despite what he might tell lawmakers behind closed doors. Republicans telling us last night that they are going to be unmoved by their pledge that they are going to require border security changes in order to give Ukraine additional funding.

One of the most high-stakes meetings that Zelenskyy is going to have today is going to be with the new Speaker Mike Johnson. That is because ultimately it will be Johnson's decision if a deal could be brokered in the Senate as to whether or not that deal is strong enough to put on the floor of the House of Representatives. There is a lot more pushback from House conservatives when it comes to giving additional aid to Ukraine. Some of those members, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, arguing that border security is not going to change her calculation, or her belief Ukraine shouldn't get a single penny more. So that is the dynamic that Johnson is up against, and that is why Zelenskyy's message to him is going to be so critically important today. Phil, Poppy?

HARLOW: Lauren Fox on the Hill, thanks very much.

MATTINGLY: Joining us now to discuss all of this, John Kirby, the National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications at the White House. Admiral, I appreciate your time this morning. I am struck by the fact that President Biden has used five words repeatedly over the course of the last two years. When asked how long U.S. support for Ukraine will continue, he says, as long as it takes, over and over and over again. Was he wrong?

JOHN KIRBY, NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL COORDINATOR FOR STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS: No. In fact, that's still his intention, Phil. We want to be able to support Ukraine for as long as it takes. Obviously, we would all love this war to be over tomorrow if it could be in terms acceptable to the Ukrainian people, but Mr. Putin shows absolutely no desire in ending this war, sitting down and negotiating at all. In fact, quite the contrary, he is now attacking energy infrastructure with missiles and drones, trying to weaponize winter. And we know that his forces on the ground are trying to go on an offensive in the east. So there is no indication that he is slowing down. If Ukraine stops fighting, that's the end of Ukraine, and none of us should be willing to accept that outcome.

MATTINGLY: So is there is plan b? Is there some executive action? He does not control the purse strings here. Is there some executive plan that he can kind of end run Congress here?

KIRBY: Look, we will do what we can to continue to support Ukraine if we run out of funds. But there won't be much we can do, Phil. We have got to have this additional supplemental funding. We have got a couple more weeks to go here, and I think you will see us announce some additional security assistance in coming days in maybe a couple weeks here from now before the end of the year.

[08:05:02]

But then that's it. There is nothing left in the pot if we don't get additional funding for Ukraine. And think about this, he is already weaponizing winter, Mr. Putin. He is already going on the offense. When the ground freezes in January and February, he will be even more able to take the offense against Russian -- I'm sorry, against Ukrainian forces that are trying to defend themselves against those onslaughts, and they won't have the capabilities, the weapons, the tools they need to fight back. It's a dire situation not just up on Capitol Hill, but it's going to be a dire situation in the east and the south of Ukraine very, very soon.

MATTINGLY: It is so striking, Admiral, how different this moment is from the moment a year ago with the surprise visit to the White House, to Capitol Hill, in terms of how the U.S., how Washington seems to feel about this, or at least the direction of it. What is the message that the president plans to give President Zelenskyy behind closed doors with no deal currently in hand and no real sense that one is coming anytime soon?

KIRBY: He'll tell him that he is going to keep working very, very hard, inside this administration and on Capitol Hill, to get that supplemental funding passed, that he and our team are going to be working with Senate Democrats to see if there is some sort of compromise that can be had to get that supplemental funding supported. And, of course, to work with the other side on border security issues. The president believes that's important too. So he's going to make it clear to President Zelenskyy that he is not giving up on this and that he really wants to get that supplemental funding passed.

MATTINGLY: In terms of the types of conversations, Dave Sanger or at "The New York Times" has a really fascinating story out this morning saying U.S. officials have been pushing a more conservative strategy, focuses on holding territory that Ukraine has, digging in, building up supplies and forces over the course of the year. Has Ukraine been receptive to that push from the U.S. side?

KIRBY: I won't talk about our conversations with the Ukrainian military one way or the other, Phil. I'll just tell you that we know that the Ukrainians are facing a tough force across that battlefront with the Russians, a force that wants to go on the offense. They want to claw back territory. They have gotten 50 percent of their territory back since they conducted this counteroffensive.

And whatever they decide to do is going to be their decisions. President Zelenskyy is the commander and chief of his armed forces. He gets to decide what they're going to do and how they are going to do it. What we want to make sure is that we are in a position to give them as much capability as possible to get that done.

MATTINGLY: I want to move to the Israel-Hamas war, obviously also a central issue for the White House and the president right now. Take a listen to what the president said at the Hanukkah reception last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We continue to provide military assistance to Israel until they get rid of Hamas.

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: But, but we have to be careful. They have to be careful. The whole world's public opinion can shift overnight. We can't let that happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Admiral, you have made this point. Top officials across the administration have made this point repeatedly, particularly over the course of the last several weeks. Can you point to specific evidence that your counterparts in the Israeli government have been listening to the concern?

KIRBY: They have been, Phil, receptive to the message about civilian casualties and reducing damage to civilian infrastructure. So here's just a couple of examples. And I'm not going to -- I'll caveat by saying we know there is more that needs to be done, and the president talks about that last night. It's something we constantly urge our Israeli counterparts to do, to be as careful and deliberate as possible.

But, for instance, when they went into north Gaza, we sent over a couple of military generals with ground experience to talk to them about their plans. They had a much larger force planned. They went in with a much smaller force and a much more targeted way. I am not suggesting they didn't cause civilian casualties. Of course they did. But they did limit the scope of their operations a little bit and went in in a more precise way.

Then in just recent days, they're dropping leaflets, they're publishing maps online to explain where the people of Gaza can go in the south where they can be more safe from combat operations. That's basically telegraphing your punches. And there is not a lot of modern militaries that would do that, that would lay out a map for the whole world to see about where it's safe to go and where it's not safe to go. Again, Phil, I want to come back to what I said. We know there is too many civilian casualties. We want them to do more to limit those civilian casualties. Each one is a tragedy. We want the number to be zero, and that's what we're going to continue to do and continue to press with our Israeli counterparts.

MATTINGLY: Can I just follow up on that point, though, with kind of the message that you and others were sending before and in very early stages of the operations in the south. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KIRBY: We have said, we've said publicly, we don't want to see them move into the south unless or until they have accounted for that additional now civilian population. That's why we continue to work, as Secretary Austin said, with our Israeli counterparts to get them to be as careful and as precise and as deliberate in their targeting as possible. They clearly are trying to make an effort to be more precise and more cautious, and that's, of course, something we have been urging them to do literally from the beginning of the conflict.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Admiral, I play that because to your point, the maps, the telegraphing that they have been doing has been a shift. It's different from what they were doing in the north.

[08:10:00]

However, precision, more CT kind of focused operations, that isn't really what we have been seeing. This has been a pretty wide scale offensive in the south. Do you believe that they are doing -- they are making mistakes in terms of how they are operating?

KIRBY: As I said, we believe they could certainly do more. They have been receptive to those messages, as I've said many times. Again, publishing these maps is not an insignificant step on their part. But I think they are doing a little bit of both, Phil. You are seeing airstrikes, and certainly in airstrikes you can cause -- your chances of causing civilian casualties are higher. But they are also conducting what we would call CT operations on the ground, going after specific leadership targets.

So I think it's a little bit of a blend on their part. But again, we are going to continue to work with them, A, to make sure they've got the tools to do it and do it effectively, because Hamas still represents a viable threat to the Israeli people, but also do it carefully, cautiously, and deliberately, and we're going to keep urging them to do that.

MATTINGLY: Admiral John Kirby, very big day at the White House. We appreciate your time, sir, thank you.

KIRBY: Yes, sir.

HARLOW: With only five weeks until the Iowa caucuses, Florida Governor and Republican presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis joins our Jake Tapper live from Iowa tonight to take questions straight from the voters ahead of that. We have got a preview of the presidential town hall.

MATTINGLY: And the Texas Supreme Court rules against a woman seeking abortion after learning the fetus has a fatal genetic condition. What the case means in a post-Roe America.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Only five weeks to go until the Iowa caucuses. Florida Governor and Republican presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis will be live on CNN at 9:00 p.m. eastern time from the stage at the Grandview University in Des Moines, Iowa. The townhall will be moderated by our very own Jake Tapper.

[08:15:00]

DeSantis is trying to mitigate his diminishing poll numbers by attacking two of his biggest opponents, Donald Trump and Nikki Haley.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL) 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. You can't have Hawkeye Haley here saying she's conservative and then a more nuanced Nikki appealing to independents and liberals in New Hampshire, that doesn't work.

You have to have the same message everywhere.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Jessica Dean, is live for us from Iowa. I mean, nuance in life, nuance does matter a lot, but he's nuanced Nikki and tricky Nikki. He's got a lot of nicknames for Nikki Haley, what are you expecting tonight?

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, he sure does, Poppy. And as we would imagine, as we get ever closer to those January 15 caucuses here in Iowa, the attacks do get sharper, and DeSantis is now kind of fighting a fight on two fronts against the front runner, former President Donald Trump, and then also Nikki Haley, who is seeing a surge as we head into this late stage of this primary before we get to the voting.

And so, we are seeing those attacks sharpen, we got a new poll out of the Des Moines Register yesterday that gives us a snapshot of where things stand here in Iowa. And if you look at those numbers, you see that the Former President continues to have a commanding lead here, with 51 percent saying they would support him, DeSantis there at 19 percent, and Haley at 16 percent. And so that is, you can see kind of a race for second place. If you

talk to DeSantis and his team, they will tell you that is not what they're here to do, they have gone all in on Iowa, and he has visited all 99 counties. They are making a big play here for those Evangelical voters.

And, Poppy, one more thing to note before I let you go, in terms of that sharper attack. We saw a tweet or a post on X from DeSantis yesterday going after Trump, who had claimed it was braver to debate Hillary Clinton than to go onto the battlefield.

And he said, debating isn't brave, it's the bare minimum any candidate should do. Hiding from debates, on the other hand, is an example of cowardice. Poppy calling him essentially a coward there. Of course, he has not Trump participated in any of the debates leading up to voting on January 15.

MATTINGLY: Yeah, it'll be interesting to see if he keeps sharpening those attacks later tonight with Jake. Jessica Dean, thanks so much. Be sure to watch the town hall tonight at 09:00 p.m. right here on CNN. Well, in Washington, Rudy Giuliani is facing a trial where a jury will determine how much he owes two former Georgia election workers for defamation.

Here's what Giuliani had to say on Monday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER TRUMP ATTORNEY: But everything I said about them is true.

REPORTER: Do you regret what you did to -

GIULIANI: Of course, I don't regret it, I told the truth, they were engaged in changing votes.

REPORTER: There's no proof of that.

GIULIANI: Oh, you're damn right there is, stay tuned.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: To be crystal clear, there is no proof of that. None of Giuliani's claims are true, zero. Giuliani's lawyer acknowledged in court yesterday, quote, "There's no question Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss were harmed." Those are the two election workers and they, quote, "Didn't deserve what happened to them."

Freeman and Moss faced a deluge of racial slurs, insults, and even death threats. Giuliani, we should note, has already been found liable for defamation. Nothing he said is true or accurate, he's lying and it's hurting people.

Just want to reiterate that every day of this trial, let's bring in CNN political commentator Alyssa Farah Griffin and the writer of the "Very Serious" newsletter, Josh Barro. Josh, to that point, I feel like we've done the whole, like what happened to Rudy?

What is Rudy doing? Everything is a lie. He's coming out at the moment; he might have to pay tens of millions of dollars, what's the deal here?

JOSH BARRO, WRITER, "VERY SERIOUS" NEWSLETTER: I don't know exactly what's going on inside his head through the process in this trial where he's been ruined financially by the immense legal costs that he has from so many simultaneous legal proceedings that he's dealing with.

He did these filings where he tried to admit to certain things, but only for certain purposes and not for other things. And the judge was not having it, but he's claimed in writing that he's admitting that certain things he said were not true, that he's now outside the courtroom there saying that they were true.

So, I don't know whether this is at some point the size of the judgments that Giuliani is going to face are so large compared to his ability to pay them. Sort of a question of what's another million-dollar kind of thing.

But at this point, the people who got so deep in these efforts, spreading the lies around the 2020 election, trying to justify the various both legal and extra-legal efforts to overturn the 2020 election. I'm not sure about the extent of the clarity that Rudy Giuliani has in his head right now about what's true and what's not.

But certainly, it's not a good legal strategy to go out there and reiterate the claims you've already admitted in court were false.

HARLOW: Beyond the money, when Rudy Giuliani continued to lie like this, these women, Ruby Freeman, and Shaye Moss, endured pain again.

[08:20:00]

And the question is how many people believe Rudy Giuliani, despite the fact and what that does to these two women?

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, that's exactly the point, these are two of kind of some of the most tragic bystanders of the events leading up to January 6 who are just doing their jobs. They were maligned, and they've faced several threats for simply doing their jobs.

Here's the thing with Rudy he's engaging in Trumpian like behavior. I think he knows that there's no path to not have to pay out these settlements. So, he's just going to fight, fight, fight. It reminds me of after the E. Jean Carroll settlement, but Trump just went out and said even further and expressed even more lying points that ended up leading to him having to pay more money.

So, I think it's a very similar case. It's horrible, but it does resonate with people who still look to Rudy Giuliani as somebody who is telling them the truth and telling them facts. And it's frankly why as much as 60 percent of the GOP has questions about the election. MATTINGLY: Yeah. If you're one of those people or, you know, one of

them, stop, just stop, he's lying. I do want to talk about DeSantis tonight because he's taken a sharper tone over the weekend. He took a sharper tone in Iowa. We used to post on X, but with words, actually, and I chuckled because it's a rarity.

Do you think he started to pivot into an attack mode on the guy who's winning by 30 points?

BARRO: Sort of, but I mean, this sort of why won't he debate my stuff, it comes off as so whiny, like, if you're looking at areas of concern for voters, the things that Donald Trump isn't going to do, what I need him to do, the voter's concern is not what debates he shows up to his opponents.

That's the number one problem Donald Trump won't participate in this campaign in the way that would help me. But you're not speaking to voters' concerns when you go out there and do these sorts of process complaints about, he's not showing up to the know.

Over the last few months, I've just been struck by how correct the Trump Camp's analysis was of DeSantis before he even announced his campaign. When DeSantis, you know, he raised all this money, his polls looked a lot better before he got in the race. He'd had this crushing reelection victory as Governor of Florida.

And all the press reporting about the Trump takes on DeSantis was, he just doesn't have it. He doesn't have the personality, he's too short, and he comes off in the debate

MATTINGLY: Verbally, physically?

BARRO: No, they think he's physically, too, and this is why you have all the stuff about whether is he wearing heels? But then in the debates when he -

HARLOW: Can we please get away from them, who's wearing heels on the debate stage?

BARRO: He's trying to get all feisty and it's like he's about to explode or something. It's kind of cute, but not in a Presidential way. He looks like he's playing a Presidential candidate.

GRIFFIN: Well the DeSantis team will keep telling you that they expect him to overperform in Iowa to do better than the polls say, they do have a strong ground game. It's a caucus state, knocking on doors matters more than most other things there.

But the reality is he's directing too much of his ire at Nikki Haley. I get that there's that second-place fight, but when you're losing by 30 points to Donald Trump in some states, even more than that, it is too little, too late. If he had launched this kind of, and again, it is a process complaint, but if he had said this a year ago, he might be in a different place.

If he'd rode the victory of the 2022 midterms and said, listen, I'm the guy to take him on. This is what Donald Trump can't show up to do, and I can do it, but it feels very little too late. High stakes for him in Iowa are kind of make or break.

HARLOW: Alyssa, what is the impact of the Texas Supreme Court banning a woman from getting an abortion through a medical exemption? What is the impact on that more broadly for Republicans, for any of those candidates trying to take the White House in '24?

GRIFFIN: it is monumentally impactful. I don't know how you can call yourself pro-life and say that a woman should jeopardize her health, her fertility, and likely her child to carry a baby to term, that she very likely may lose. This is where the nuance of the abortion issue comes into play.

At my party, it's like we're the dog that caught the car, and now we're saying, oh, shoot. There are very real-life cases where a woman, when medically recommended by her doctor, should always have the exception. I'm curious to see how he answers this tonight, we know Jake Tapper is going to ask him because Iowa, is a very conservative state, but this has very real impacts.

I know women who've been in similar boats. I think most people do, so I'm curious to see if he actually can pull from some nuanced Nikki Haley and show that this is not a black-and-white issue.

HARLOW: Alyssa, thank you, Josh, good to have you, thank you.

MATTINGLY: Well, disgraced Congressman turned cameo star George Santos is expected to appear at a New York courthouse this morning. Is a plea deal on the horizon? We live in Long Island.

HARLOW: Also new this morning, the Harvard Crimson reported that the University's embattled president, Claudine Gay will keep her job. We are expecting an official announcement from Harvard this morning, the latest on that ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:25:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Breaking news into CNN, Harvard's board has just released a statement writing that the school's president, Claudine Gay, has their support and will keep her job. The elite university is putting its support behind Gay after she appeared before that Congressional committee last week.

And that appearance was widely criticized in terms of her testimony on antisemitism in America's universities. Matt Egan has been following all these developments, breaking news left and right. And this went a different way than the University of Pennsylvania where Liz Magill resigned.

Claudia Gay will stay, why? MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Yeah, Poppy and Phil, we are just getting

this in right now. This was a huge decision that Harvard had to make here, they were facing so many calls to separate themselves from Claudine Gay, that they decided not to do this.

The Harvard Corporation, that's the top governing body at Harvard, just put out this statement, they say they stand unanimously in support of Gay. They called her the right leader to help our community heal and to address the very serious societal issues that we face.

The statement goes on to say that calls for genocide are despicable and contrary. Now, this is going to come as a huge relief to the Harvard faculty who came to Gay's rescue.

In the last 36 hours or so, we heard from hundreds of professors come out in support, and we got the sense that a lot of the people within Harvard, did not want politicians donors, and other people on the outside to meddle in their affairs.

Of course, this is going to upset those same politicians and donors, most notably billionaire Bill Ackman, who already tweeted his pleasure about this last night before the news was even official. But clearly, she had enough support, and more so than the Pennsylvania president.

[08:30:00]