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Harvard President Claudine Gay Faces Plagiarism Probe; Judge Rejects Effort To Remove Trump From WV Primary; Trump Faces 14th Amendment Ballot Challenge In Maine; Surgeon General On Mission To Cure Loneliness; Michigan GOP Chair Faces Backlash Over Leadership. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired December 22, 2023 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

MILES HERSZENHORN, MANAGING EDITOR, THE HARVARD CRIMSON: Medical school, that could spell some serious trouble.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN HOST: Our colleague and friend, Brian -- former colleague and friend Brian Stelter pointed out the breaking news tweet a few weeks ago from the Harvard Crimson that was sent out at 4 37 in the morning. You guys are the ones who broke the news at the Harvard Corporation was going to stand by her as president.

Can you speak to being a Harvard student in final exams doing this reporting, breaking huge news at any news organization would want to break. Just what that experience has been like for you?

HERSZENHORN: Yes, it's -- it was remarkable So that was when I was still a reporter for the Crimson.

HARLOW: Yes.

HERSZENHORN: I recently became managing editor but I was still a reporter covering the university's president and provost with my fantastic colleague Claire. And the two of us were the ones who were able to get that scoop and break the news.

That night was -- I remember it well, we were going back and forth from the library. We kept trying to study, but this is a major story for us at the Crimson. It's a major story for Harvard. And so we kept trying to get the scoop. And our books were not able to really distract us from the journalism, so we kept going at it, and eventually we landed something, and we reported it at 4:00 a.m.

HARLOW: You got it. Miles Herszenhorn, thank you very much.

HERSZENHORN: Thank you.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN HOST: Well, new overnight, a judge rejects a challenge to kick Donald Trump off the primary ballot in another state. How Colorado's ruling could impact other looming decision on Trump's constitutional eligibility?

HARLOW: And a deal to sell U.S. steel strikes outrage in the Rust Belt and beyond. Now the White House is taking a crucial look at the deal.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTINGLY: New overnight, a district judge rejected another effort to kick Donald Trump off the ballot in West Virginia, essentially ruling the plaintiff did not have standing to sue using Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. That lawsuit is one of several filed using the clause to argue that Trump is constitutionally ineligible to be on the ballot because he had allegedly incited an insurrection on January 6th.

[07:35:16]

The Colorado Supreme Court has already banned Trump from the primary ballot pending an appeal. Maine Secretary of State could rule on a similar challenge as early as next week. That's what we're going to talk about.

Joining us now, Republican former Maine State Senator Tom Saviello. He's spearheading efforts to keep Trump off the ballot in his state. I appreciate your time. Let's start with the timing. When did you decide that you wanted to move forward on this front?

TOM SAVIELLO (R), FORMER MAINE STATE SENATOR: I actually did some homework on January 6th and on the 14th Amendment, since a lot of Maine heroes were involved in writing that amendment to keep Jefferson off -- Jefferson Davis off the ballot. They began to understand that there was this concept, this insurrection out there, and I really believe that Trump was a significant part of an insurrection on January 6th.

So that started me, and then I was called and asked if I would be interested in joining this argument in front of the secretary of state of Maine, and I said, yes.

MATTINGLY: You know, to your point, one of the arguments that has been made against it has been there has been -- he's not been criminally charged, nor has he been convicted of insurrection. What do you say to those who argue that?

SAVIELLO: Well, if you read the 14th Amendment, it doesn't say anything about convicted. It just says that he created an insurrection against the state. That's why I don't believe we need to have a conviction to go forward.

MATTINGLY: Yes, and it's self-executing as well. The -- it's been interesting, and particularly in conservative circles, there's a split, there's a divide in the legal movement. Some believe this absolutely has merit, some completely dismiss it, including former Attorney General Bill Barr. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL BARR, FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL: Denial of due process is fatal here. The federal investigation has not charged President Trump with insurrection or incitement. It's sort of mushy exactly what's an insurrection, what does engagement mean. Now every state is going to make their own rules on this. Everyone does a different thing and knocks national candidates off ballots.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Yes.

BARR: It'll be chaos.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Bill Barr kind of ticking through the three or four core arguments against it here, but that last one I think is an interesting one to focus on, is the Supreme Court weighs what they're going to do here. Do you have concerns about kind of a patchwork situation where several states we've seen rejected, several decide to move forward with it and what that means?

SAVIELLO: Well, I think ultimately -- the ultimate decision will be made by the U.S. Supreme Court. I mean, but I think we have to have a placeholder out there. I believe in our state, our statutes allow us to do this because we charge the Secretary of State. That is probably one of the big differences in Maine is all the other cases have gone to court.

Ours is not in court. It's in front of our Maine Secretary of State, Shenna Bellows. That's a huge difference. So she can make a decision and then moves forward into the courts. But at the end of the day, I really do believe that the U.S. Supreme Court will make the final decision.

MATTINGLY: Any insight into how the Secretary of State is going to act here?

SAVIELLO: No. But, you know, she was very interesting during her deliberations last Friday. She made it very clear she wanted the both sides, our side and the other side, Trump's side, to make it clear why or why she should not step in. And then she went on to say, now that you've made that argument, prove to me that, in fact, there was an insurrection. And I think that was interesting because we put all the cases out there where Trump clearly incited a riot on January 6th.

MATTINGLY: It'll certainly be something everybody's watching in the days ahead. Tom Saviello, we appreciate your time. Thank you.

SAVIELLO: Thanks for letting me talk to you. Good luck. Bye-bye.

HARLOW: So it is one of the most joyous times of the year, right? But it can also feel like one of the loneliest. The Surgeon General is going to join us next to talk about how you can feel closer to people and how he's dealt with isolation.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:42:30]

HARLOW: Feelings of loneliness, of course, can last all year, but the holidays can be especially difficult for people who feel isolated. A recent search in general advisory found that lacking social connection can actually increase your risk of death by 60 percent. It also raises the chances of dementia, stroke, and heart disease, and it can be the equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

It suggests loneliness is more widespread than diabetes and obesity. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared it an epidemic. And this is what he wrote in the New York Times recently. "As it has built for decades, the epidemic of loneliness and isolation has fueled other problems that are killing us and threatening to rip our country apart." And he joins me now.

Thank you very much for being with us, especially at a moment like this.

DR. VIVEK MURTHY, SURGEON GENERAL: Of course, good to be with you, Poppy.

HARLOW: You have called this one of the defining issues of our time. And usually when a Surgeon General declares something an epidemic, we're talking about AIDS, for example, or cigarettes. That is how severe you believe this is for people.

MURTHY: I do, Poppy. Most people think about loneliness as just a bad feeling, but it is much more than that. We know that when we struggle with a sense of loneliness and isolation, it increases our risk for depression and anxiety, but also for heart disease, for dementia, for premature death. And we also know that when societies more broadly struggle with loneliness, it puts them at increased risk of violence.

It makes them at reduced risk or reduced resilience in the face of adversity. And it also sets them up to be more divided and polarized. And so at a time when we are struggling as a country with a mental health crisis, when we are seeing, sadly, the impacts of division and polarization, our connections with one another could not be more important --

HARLOW: Yes.

MURTHY: -- to emphasize. And finally, let's remember this. This is not uncommon. One in two adults are struggling with loneliness, and the numbers are even higher among kids. So this truly is a public health threat and needs to be a public health priority.

HARLOW: Well, the fact that you say the numbers are even higher among kids, I've been fascinated by this sort of national tour you've been doing, actually focused on college kids. You were in my neck of the woods not long ago at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. And you're really focusing on them, but you're also putting out these steps, right? It's a 5-for-5 challenge. What can people do?

MURTHY: Well, this is the great news, Poppy, that we can do something about loneliness and small steps, it turns out, can make a really big difference in how we feel.

[07:45:06]

The 5-for-5 challenge that we issued to college students recently and then subsequently to the entire nation a few weeks ago is really simple. It involves taking one active connection each day over the course of five days.

And that could either be by expressing gratitude to someone, by extending help to someone, or by asking for help yourself, and these are very simple. They can take up to just 60 seconds a day to reach out to a friend to call them to say, hey, I'm thinking about you. I remember how you showed up for me last year, and I want you to know how much that meant to me.

Work involved thinking about a friend, you have who may have had a recent loss. I think about my best friend from middle school who lost her mother unexpectedly a few months ago. This is a really tough time for people like my friend and others around the holidays. And I just want people to remember, especially during the holidays, reaching out to other people to check on them.

It could be one of the most powerful things you do, one of the greatest blessings that you offer others during this holiday season, because a lot of people are struggling. And sometimes just a call from you, reminding them that you see them, that they matter --

HARLOW: Yes.

MURTHY: -- that could be the gift that they need this holiday season.

HARLOW: Social media is such a big part of this, as you write about and acknowledge. And I was really struck by the CEO of Airbnb, Brian Chesky, came on the show with us a couple months ago. You worked for a while for the company, and you're actually the one that got him talking about loneliness. And this is what he said is driving part of it in his experience. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIAN CHESKY, CEO AND CO-FOUNDER, AIRBNB: The mall becomes Amazon and the theater becomes Netflix and the office becomes Zoom and all these -- and it's not -- they're not -- it's not anyone's fault. It's just all these things are a step forward, but they ultimately maybe have effective isolating us. We need to still get out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: What do we need to do? Not everyone's going to quit these apps. Some people -- I stopped using Instagram a couple months ago and I feel a little bit better. What do people need to do?

MURTHY: Well, I think one of the things that's really important to recognize is we didn't get here overnight. COVID certainly contributed to this loneliness crisis, but it was a problem long before. As a result, the lesser participation in the community organizations that used to bring us together, rec leagues, churches, synagogues, et cetera, but also the impact of technology and social media has not always been positive. It's often diluted the quality of people's relationships, taking them from in person interactions to online interactions.

Here a couple of simple things people can do is, one, draw boundaries around your use of technology, have some spaces in your day that are tech free, particularly your time in person with others, your time around meals, your time before you go to bed. But it's also important for us to proactively build time in our day to reach out to other people.

I try to put 15 minutes aside each day to reach out to someone I care about. Sometimes it's just calling my mother. Sometimes it's just calling a friend to say, hey, I'm thinking about you. I want to know how you're doing. Those small moments matter. And they matter even more at a time when so much of our attention and energy is being pulled aside and pulled apart by technology, by work, and other forces.

HARLOW: Yes. Mom, I'm going to call you right after the show if you're watching. Finally, quickly, you experienced this yourself. You went through isolation and loneliness.

MURTHY: Yes.

HARLOW: I think that might surprise people. What can you share?

MURTHY: Well, I know what loneliness feels like. I know how it can feel like it's tearing you apart inside. How it can feel like this deep void that you feel ashamed about, and that you don't talk about because you feel like admitting you're lonely might be admitting that you're not likable or not lovable. And I want everyone to know that that is not the case.

If you are struggling with loneliness, you are not the only one and you are not broken. What I had to do is recognize that. It took years for me to come to that realization. But it was my wife, Alice, you know, a few years ago, who helped me realize that, you know, I was struggling, in fact, with loneliness. Sometimes it's hard to see in yourself.

And it was just a couple of friends, two good friends in particular, who made a commitment to check in on me regularly, who helped pull me out of that deep abyss of loneliness. And that's the last critical message to remember is that this is about quality of friendships, quality of interactions, not quantity.

I know the age of social media has convinced us that we need thousands of followers and thousands of friends. We do not. It's -- we just need a few people in our life who see us for who we are, with whom we can be ourselves, and who can show up for us in a crisis. And hopefully we can do the same for them.

HARLOW: It's such an important message around the holidays. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, thank you very much.

MURTHY: Thanks so much, Poppy. Good to be with you as always.

HARLOW: Merry Christmas.

MATTINGLY: Well no one wants to be called a tyrannical, incompetent dumpster fire. I don't think so at least. But that's how some Republicans describe the chair of the Michigan Republican Party. And they open up about how her leadership could cost them in pivotal races. That's next.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[07:50:03]

WARREN CARPENTER, FORMER MI GOP DISTRICT CHAIR: I don't want her to do anything except for resign. And I'll tell you what, if she doesn't, then we'll remove her.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTINGLY: We've been talking a lot this morning about the Detroit News report about the phone call then President Trump made to election workers in Michigan pressuring them not to certify the 2020 vote. But another issue lurks within that state's Republican Party. A CNN investigation finds it's out of money and it has been rocked by turmoil.

Local Republicans fear that could jeopardize their chances in 2024 and they tell CNN's Jason Carroll the blame falls squarely on the state party chairwoman who is a Trump ally.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KRISTINA KARAMO, CHAIRPERSON OF THE MICHIGAN REPUBLICAN PARTY: Michigan is ground zero for the globalist takedown of the United States of America.

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is the person some are accusing of being behind the trouble plaguing Michigan's Republican Party.

KARAMO: I saw firsthand the systemic election corruption.

[07:55:04]

CARROLL (voice-over): She's Kristina Karamo, former community college professor, former poll watcher, election denier and conspiracy theorist and the current chairperson of the Michigan Republican Party.

ANDY SEBOLT, MI GOP DISTRICT CHAIR: She's very charismatic. When you hear her speak, she can get a crowd going.

BREE MOEGGENBERG, MI GOP STATE COMMITTEE MEMBER: She goes grassroots. We're grassroots.

CARROLL (voice-over): For a time, Bree Moeggenberg and Andy Sebolt were among Karamo's biggest supporters. Now, they are some of her strongest critics, calling for her to be removed from office.

MOEGGENBERG: I'm sorry because I voted for her.

SEBOLT: She's losing supporters. I mean, literally hemorrhaging supporters.

CARROLL (voice-over): Another state committee member referred to her in an e-mail as a tyrannical, incompetent dumpster fire. Karamo lacked much political experience but rose quickly within the state GOP promoting her steadfast support of Donald Trump and strong Christian beliefs.

In 2022, she lost the race to be Michigan Secretary of State, but in February was elected chair of the State's Republican Party. Since then her critics say the state party has been bogged down with infighting, dysfunction and according to documents, dismal fundraising.

CARPENTER: We're bankrupt. It's provable.

CARROLL: You're broke?

CARPENTER: Yes, correct. Now she ran it into the ground.

CARROLL (voice-over): Warren Carpenter is a former party district chair and former Karamo supporter who shares her election denying views and conservative values her disdain for the establishment and lack of political or business experience was also part of her appeal to her supporters.

CARROLL: You understand what some of your critics will say? They'll say you got what you asked for and this is the person --

CARPENTER: I was wrong. Yes. Full stop, I was wrong. I was on her team until I saw the financial situation.

CARROLL (voice-over): Warren shared documents with CNN that appeared to show the party had a net income of about $71,000 between March and November of 2023. Compare that to how much Karamo said she hoped to raise.

KARAMO: That will require I believe at least $50 million. And I'm very confident that I will be able to raise out.

CARROLL (voice-over): Millions needed and little to show for it, a couple that with what critics call questionable spending decisions like taking out a $110,000 loan to pay actor Jim Caviezel, who has pushed false QAnon conspiracy theories to speak at a major event the party hosted in September. This situation is so dire, some members of the party's Budget Committee have resigned.

A member warn the party faced imminent default on the line of credit. And now worries the dysfunction in Michigan could have broader implications in a state where Trump won in 2016, then flipped and Biden won in 2020, both by narrow margins.

DOUG HEYE, FORMER RNC COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: When a state party is falling short on its fundraising, it can have an impact on anybody who's on that ballot, president, senator, mayor, member of Congress.

CARROLL (voice-over): Karamo wouldn't speak to CNN. JOEL STUDEBAKER, MI GOP DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF: We come to the table with almost no political experience. And we don't view that as a bad thing.

CARROLL (voice-over): But her deputy chief of staff, Joel Studebaker and Ken Beyer, a district Chairman, say Karamo's critics have not given her a chance.

CARROLL: How much have you raised this year?

STUDEBAKER: Far less. It's been a challenge. It's been a challenge.

CARROLL: How much can you put it down?

STUDEBAKER: I don't know the exact dollar amount. But it's, you know, I don't know that it's over a million.

KEN BEYER, MI GOP DISTRICT CHAIR: She's not a business person. We knew that when we elected her.

CARROLL: But is that now starting to come back to sort of to bite chip because the business of this is not working, it's failing.

BEYER: What she's doing is she's motivating a bunch of people within the community to get active inside their own neighborhood.

CARROLL (voice-over): Beyer says the Republican establishment set Karamo up to fail by sending their donations to other GOP state organizations.

BEYER: These folks are pulling the rug out from Kristina and then blaming her for falling.

CARROLL (voice-over): But Karamo's critics say she's not making enough effort to reach traditional Republicans arguing she has gone out of her way to alienate them with statements like this.

KARAMO: The Michigan Republican Party operates like a political mafia.

CARROLL (voice-over): A conference volunteer list leaked to the press also has not helped. It ranks potential volunteers one to four. One being patriot to four being me first or Rhino. State committee member Bree Moeggenberg was ranked to four.

MOEGGENBERG: She's disenfranchising the voters, she's disenfranchised us. And that is not how you build up a team. That is not how you unite the Republican Party.

CARROLL (voice-over): Karamo's detractors took steps to try to remove her from office in this meeting.

BEYER: If they would stand down and take the energy that they're using to try to destroy us and try to help us with the experience that they have, we'd be unstoppable.

CARROLL (voice-over): Too late for former supporters such as Warren Carpenter.

CARPENTER: I don't want her to do anything except for resign. And I'll tell you what, if she doesn't, then we'll remove her.

Jason Carroll, CNN, Dearborn, Michigan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: Our thanks to Jason for that piece. CNN This Morning continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CRAIG MAUGER, STATE POLITICS REPORTER, THE DETROIT NEWS: There's a whistleblower that possesses the audio of these recordings.