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CNN This Morning

Republican Presidential Candidates Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis to Take Iowa Voter Questions at Townhalls; Former President Trump Appeals to Supreme Court to Overturn Colorado State Supreme Court Decision to Remove Him from Republican Presidential Primary Ballot; House Speaker Johnson Blames Biden for Catastrophe at Border; Names of Jeffrey Epstein Associates Made Public. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired January 04, 2024 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:03]

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. I'm Phil Mattingly with Audie Cornish in New York. Poppy Harlow is off today.

And Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, they're going to face Iowa voters tonight in CNN townhalls. Why Haley says New Hampshire Republicans need to correct the Hawkeyes.

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: And the first batch of the Jeffery Epstein documents are unsealed. What it reveals about Epstein's relationships with former Presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump.

MATTINGLY: And the Supreme Court expected to answer a historic question, should Donald Trump be allowed to run for president in Colorado? Why his team says he deserves to have his name on the ballot.

This hour of CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.

Good morning. Welcome to the top of the hour. This morning the clock, it is ticking for Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley as they try and close a gap with Donald Trump. And tonight they'll be right here on CNN with back-to-back townhalls from Des Moines, Iowa. They'll be making their case to Republican voters with just 11 days -- I told you there was a clock. There is a clock -- 11 days until the caucuses. Polls continue to show Trump dominating his rivals in the state of Iowa. Just yesterday an Iowa voter confronted DeSantis on the campaign trail about why he is not attacking the frontrunner harder.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why haven't you gone directly after him? In my viewpoint, you are going pretty soft on him.

GOV. RON DESANTIS, (R-FL) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, but what do you think -- because we -- I articulated all the differences time and time again on the campaign trail. What the media wants is they want Republican candidates to just kind of, like, smear him personally and kind of do that. That's just not how I roll. (END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Meanwhile, Nikki Haley has been hitting the trail in New Hampshire which holds the first Republican presidential primaries in a week after Iowa. Harry Enten is here to break down the tough numbers that they're facing.

MATTINGLY: Harry, look, I think we are going to start with -- if you look at Iowa, we all try and talk about, OK, what is the map. How do you get through this race if you're a Republican. Let's talk about Iowa and the lead that Donald Trump has, which is enormous.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICS WRITER AND ANALYST: It's an enormous lead. So you showed us CBS New-YouGov poll. I am going to show the trend line for "The Des Moines Register" poll which is the premier poll in that state. And what you essentially see here is Donald Trump has gotten stronger. He was at 43 percent in October. Look where he is now. More than a majority, more than 50 percent, a majority at 51 percent. And you see Ron DeSantis within the margin of error where he was in October. You look at Nikki Haley, she is stable. This is an over 30-point advantage with Trump getting a majority of the vote.

And I want to put this in historic context for you, just how large Trump's lead is. These are folks who polled at 45 percent or greater in Iowa at this point, all before Trump won the caucuses. Mondale in 84 Bush in 2000, Gore in 2000, Hillary Clinton 2016, and now we see Trump at 2024. I would note, in fact, Trump is the only one to actually be at greater than 50 percent of the vote. The rest of these folks were at 50 percent of the vote or lower. Trump is the strongest frontrunner in Iowa in polling history.

MATTINGLY: History?

ENTEN: History.

MATTINGLY: History, which I also think may give people a window into why Nikki Haley said this last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIKKI HALEY, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I trust every single one of you. You know how to do this. You know Iowa starts it. You know that you correct it. You know that you continue to go --

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: There were a lot of people that were like, Iowans are going to freak out. Nikki Haley is trying to win New Hampshire, or do really well in New Hampshire, and she has a chance when you look at the polling. Not in Iowa. Is she right, though? Does Iowa end up having to be corrected by New Hampshire?

ENTEN: Let's take a look here, and we'll break it down a few ways. OK, the Iowa winner went on to become the GOP nominee in caucuses since 1980. Only two of them -- Bob Dole in 1996, George Bush in 2000. The rest of them, actually the Iowa winner didn't go on to be the GOP nominee. So you might say, OK, maybe Nikki Haley has a point.

But let's break this down a little bit further. Iowa winners who led in the national polls went on to become the nominee, Bob Dole in 96, Bush in 2000. Of course, Donald Trump has a huge national polling lead as well. Those folks when met the definition, did they not go on to win the nomination? There are no examples of this. No examples.

Further, how about this? New Hampshire correcting Iowa's perhaps mistake in the minds of Nikki Haley. National GOP frontrunners who won Iowa and lost New Hampshire, Bob Dole in 96, George W. Bush in 2000. Both went on to be the GOP nominee.

So, yes, it's true. Iowa doesn't always pick the president. But when Iowa goes along with the national frontrunner, that, folks, those two folks have both gone on to be the nominee. So sort of not exactly right from Nikki Haley at least as far as the historical numbers are concerned.

[08:05:00]

MATTINGLY: I love how careful you were with your framing of Iowans and their role, making sure to attributing it to Nikki Haley, because you don't want that smoke.

ENTEN: I don't need that smoke. I love Iowa. I love all the states in our union. I'm a big fan.

MATTINGLY: Harry Enten, we appreciate you, my friend. Thank you.

ENTEN: Thank you.

MATTINGLY: And Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley take questions directly from Iowa voters in back-to-back events. The CNN Republican presidential townhall is moderated by Kaitlan Collins and Erin Gurnett air tonight starting at 9:00 eastern.

CORNISH: Colorado's secretary of state responding after Donald Trump formally asked the U.S. Supreme Court to keep him on the state's ballot.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JENA GRISWOLD, COLORADO SECRETARY OF STATE: A president, the person who has, arguably, the most power in the country, should not be able to do that type of action and run again when every other elected official would be barred from doing so. And I do believe that the United States Supreme Court should tell the American people whether a president can engage in insurrection and then again run for that office.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Trump appealed last month's stunning Colorado State Supreme Court ruling that disqualified under the 14 Amendment's insurrectionist clause. His appeal raising the pressure on the Supreme Court to settle whether the Republican frontrunner should be allowed to return to the White House as state courts have come to differing conclusions across the country. This comes 11 days before the first votes in the nation in Iowa.

MATTINGLY: In his petition, Trump and lawyers argue that he, quote, in no way engaged in an insurrection. And the 14th Amendment's insurrectionist ban doesn't apply to the presidency. The filing states, quote, "to find that Section 3 includes the presidency, one must conclude that the drafters decided to bury the most visible and prominent national office in a catchall term that includes low ranking military officers. The Constitution's text and structure make clear that the president is not an officer of the United States."

Joining us to discuss all of this, CNN senior legal analyst and former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York Elie Honig, and Temidayo Aganga-Williams, who is a former senior investigative counsel with the House January 6th Committee. You have disagreed on this between the two of you over the course -- not on everything. Don't give me that face.

(LAUGHTER)

ELIE HONIG, SENIOR CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Some things.

MATTINGLY: Disputing elements of this or at least the path forward on this up to this point. Based on how you have kind of thought through this over the course of the last several months, when you saw the appeal last night and what was actually in it, do you think it's an effective one?

TEMIDAYO AGANGA-WILLIAMS, PARTNER, SELENDY GAY ELSBERG: I think what's effective about the appeal is that there are a lot of potential offramps for the Supreme Court. I think that's what benefits the former president. The court can get rid of this case without necessarily getting to the core merits that all we want to see them talk about. The court could say that the former president is not an officer. That doesn't get to the insurrection question. The court could find that there was process issues with the state court. The court could find all kinds of things that don't really get to the core of did President Trump engage in an insurrection. So I think that's a benefit for the former president.

He just needs one. It could be procedural. It could be less than substantive. And I think that's the most likely way the court actually deals with this. I don't expect the Supreme Court to issue a wide ruling, opinion to get to the substance, really get to the meat of this. So I think that's why if you are going to call it effective, it's that, is that it gives the court lots of options out.

HONIG: I 100 percent agree with that. I think that's exactly right. I do not think the Supreme Court is going to give us a definitive ruling, this was or was not insurrection, Trump did or did not engage in it. They don't, A, do that as a normal matter. They are not fact finders. And B, they don't need to because really what they're being asked to pass judgment on here is, was this process as prescribed in the Constitution, was this process fair and adequate? And then, of course, there's the is the president an officer point of view. And Temidayo is right, all Donald Trump has to do is win one of these arguments and he has got it. The challengers have to win them all. So I think the Supreme Court is very, very, very likely to take this case, virtually certain. If I think, if I had to guess, I think Trump is going to prevail.

CORNISH: His attorneys point to his tweet from that afternoon telling supporters to, quote, stay peaceful. Of course, we know a former aide, Sarah Matthews, told the January 6th Committee that he resisted pressure to condemn the violence. Matthews has also said she urged former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany to tell Trump to release a statement. I want you to hear a little bit of that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARAH MATTHEWS, FORMER DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: She looked directly at me and in a hushed tone shared with me that the president did not want to include any sort of mention of peace in that tweet, and that it took some convincing on their part, those who were in the room. And she said that there was a back and forth going over different phrases to find something that he was comfortable with. And it wasn't until Ivanka Trump suggested the phrase "stay peaceful" that he finally agreed to include it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: This is relevant almost to most cases at this point. But how significant is testimony, right, that was public in these cases?

[08:10:02]

AGANGA-WILLIAMS: I think when you look at the factual record that committee established, I think it fully supports that the former president not only engaged in insurrection, but that he gave aid and comfort to insurrectionists. Here we are talking about the 187 minutes from when the president left the stage until he actually told the insurrectionists to go home. He resisted all calls to ask them to stand down. He tweeted out I think around 3:00 p.m. that day about Mike Pence not having the courage. And even after January 6th he's talked about providing pardons for the insurrectionists and otherwise effectively providing them comfort.

So I think there is a long and established record here that shows that the former president engaged in insurrection, he sent people to the Capitol, that he wanted violence, that he knew there would be violence here --

CORNISH: You are saying the tweet is not enough. You think there is enough in the public record --

AGANGA-WILLIAMS: I think there is more than enough. I think we put through our extensive hearings over the summer establishing this record. It's a record that was relied on in Maine in part, that was relied on in Colorado in part. And I think that record is what people really should be struggling with. And I think -- it's tough to take issue with that record.

MATTINGLY: Could I ask you, we were talking about this earlier, the Supreme Court's probably going to dodge that, with decent reason, I guess, to some degree. There is no juries. But if that's the case, then there is no answer to that question of what under the 14th Amendment, Section 3 constitutes an insurrection. Is it self- executing, is it based on a criminal charge, is it based on a conviction. Nobody knows the answer to that right now, and they aren't going to weigh in?

HONIG: Right. So a couple things. What the Supreme Court could say to give us something of an answer is Congress has to tell us how this works, Congress has to tell us what the process is. And thus far --

CORNISH: Congress has to define an insurrection?

HONIG: No, has to tell us who gets to decide whether there is an insurrection and by what means. Thus far in the 150 plus years since the amendment was passed, all Congress has done that still remains on the book is pass the criminal law against insurrectionists. So that may be it. It may be unsatisfying to people. It's possible the Supreme Court says that's all Congress has done, and, therefore, the only way to be disqualified under the 14th Amendment is to be charged and convicted of insurrection.

To the larger point, we will ever get definitive word was this insurrection or not. The place that will be litigated is in the criminal courts ultimately with Jack Smith's case and perhaps the Fulton County D.A.'s case, and we'll have a full airing of the issues. I agree with Temidayo on the strength of the evidence. I think the committee made a very compelling showing that changed the national discourse.

MATTINGLY: You guys have agreed the entire time.

HONIG: I'm sorry.

MATTINGLY: Totally undercut.

(LAUGHTER)

MATTINGLY: Temidayo, Elie, we appreciate you guys. Thank you.

The battle over the border could lead to a shutdown and a showdown when it comes to government funding. Our Jake Tapper spoke with Speaker Mike Johnson after his visit yesterday. He joins us, next.

CORNISH: And ahead, the shocking moment a man leapt over a court bench and attacked a judge in Nevada.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:16:38]

CORNISH: House Speaker Mike Johnson blaming President Biden for what he says is a catastrophe at the southern border after migrant crossings surged to a record high last month.

Johnson traveled to Eagle Pass, Texas, Wednesday with 60 House Republicans where they toured Border Patrol facilities and spoke with local residents and officials.

MATTINGLY: At the same time, some negotiators in the opposite chamber are attempting to strike a deal on tying stricter border policy measures to critical aid for Ukraine and Israel. Some House Republicans though saying they won't support any deal that doesn't have the restrictions they passed in a sweeping border bill last spring.

Our CNN's Jake Tapper spoke with Speaker Mike Johnson yesterday about those talks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST, "THE LEAD": Why not pass the $14 billion supplemental bill that President Biden has put before you to at least try to help with some of these issues.

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): That won't solve -- that won't solve any of the problems I just articulated.

TAPPER: No, it is not -- no. Right, no. No.

JOHNSON: It won't do a darn thing.

TAPPER: Well, I'm sure that people in the Border Patrol agency that you're with think it might do something at least in terms of making their job a little easier for the next month or so.

JOHNSON: No, No. Actually, they don't.

TAPPER: They don't want the $14 billion?

JOHNSON: No, no. I just quoted to the deputy chief of the US Border Patrol and he said he doesn't need more buckets. In other words, he doesn't need more personnel to handle the flow. He needs to turn the flow off, that's what we're talking about.

TAPPER: But --

JOHNSON: This is not about sending more money down here, it is about changing the policy and the White House seems not to understand that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: And now CNN chief Washington correspondent and "The Lead" anchor, Jake Tapper had that interview yesterday. He joins us.

Jake, what was striking to me is the red line on the House passed bill, which if that's the case, the negotiations that are happening in the Senate are worth nothing. This is dead. There is no agreement.

TAPPER: Yes, I mean, I think that that's a fair assessment. Right now, you have three senators -- Murphy from Connecticut, Sinema

from Arizona, and Lankford from Oklahoma -- an Independent, a Democrat, and a Republican, all working hard trying to come up with some sort of negotiation, some sort of immigration and border bill that would get 60 votes in the Senate and pass the House.

At the same time, the Democrats in the Senate and the Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer have said that HR 2, which is the House Republicans immigration bill, their border bill is a non-starter, it's just too conservative for them. Draconian is the word that many of them would use.

And then you have the House Republicans saying basically, this -- what you need to send to us needs to be HR 2. You can call it whatever you want, but that's what it needs to be, and this is very much a policy disagreement where it looks like House Republicans are just refusing to budge, even though their majority in Congress, for other reasons continues to shrink.

At the end of the month, as you know, Speaker Johnson's majority -- well, he will only have 219 seats. He can only afford to lose two Republicans in any one vote, that's because of resignations and the ejection of Santos and the like.

So we are heading towards a -- we're at an impasse it seems if it -- you know, what I see is Democrats moving more and more towards the Republican position and making more and more concessions in a way that I've never seen Senate or White House Democrats would be willing to do, but for House Republicans, they want HR 2 and that's what it needs to be.

[08:20:04]

CORNISH: Yes, we also hear House Republicans threatening to shut down the government if they don't get what they're asking for. So is this kind of a powerful enough bargaining chip?

TAPPER: I mean, I think that that is a pretty powerful bargaining chip. You have in a few weeks this government funding bill that needs to happen, and you already have plenty of Republicans in the House Freedom Caucus saying very loudly, that if they don't get HR 2, they're not going to go along with any continued government funding.

They already have issues, as we all know with the degree of spending that the government does.

I asked Speaker Johnson about that. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: The House Freedom Caucus, a very important flank in the Republican Party you're talking about, refusing to vote to keep the government open unless HR 2 is law. How seriously do you take those threats?

JOHNSON: Well, look, I don't think it's just the Freedom Caucus. I think you have most House Republicans who are responding to their constituents' concerns about this border.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: So there you go. I mean, Speaker Johnson saying it's not just the House Freedom Caucus, its most Republicans. He didn't say all, and there are all, of course, are a number of Republicans from districts that Biden won that might not be willing to at the end of the day, shut down the government over this, but we are definitely heading towards a real confrontation.

MATTINGLY: Jake, this interview, he hasn't done a ton of national media outside of kind of conservative media over the course of his first couple of months in the speakership. What was your sense with this trip, with this debate that's ongoing right now, with the shrinking House Republican majority that you noted earlier, there is no margin for error, in terms of how he envisions a way out of this moment to fund the government, to get Ukraine aid -- all of these things?

TAPPER: Well, I mean, Speaker Johnson is not one who necessarily is the biggest supporter of further aid to Ukraine, so I don't think that's a real concern for him, and House Republicans will tell you, you know, if you just pass the Israel aid on its own, they'll support it.

What I think you can discern from what Speaker Johnson is doing in terms of his appearance on CNN yesterday from the border, his trip to the border with 60 House Republicans to talk about this issue, to highlight this issue, and the fact that this is how he is starting his year, and this is really how he is starting his speakership in a real way -- I mean, last year, when he took over, he kind of had to deal with the mess left over from former Speaker McCarthy -- is that they feel, House Republicans feel that this is a winning issue for them, not just with the Republican base, but with voters in general.

And they see movement from Democrats towards their side on this issue. You have even pretty liberal Democrats, like Senator John Fetterman, from the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, saying wanting to have a strong border is not xenophobic. You see Democrats in negotiations willing to make concessions on tightening asylum policy, making it easier to deport individuals who have come into this country illegally.

They feel like they have a winning issue. The question is, how far are they willing to push it? Do they need to get 100 percent of what they want in order to declare victory? Or will they be happy with seventy- five, eighty percent?

I've been in this town for a long time and I can tell you that I have seen House Republicans for year after year, whether the immigration reform measures are being pushed by President Bush or President Obama, House Republicans tend to demand perfection in terms of what they think an immigration bill should be, and at least historically, they would rather have nothing than 80 percent of what they want.

MATTINGLY: It certainly looks like they're heading down that path now again, based on your interview. It was a fascinating conversation.

Jake Tapper, thanks so much.

TAPPER: Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.

MATTINGLY: Of course, you can watch Jake on "The Lead," 4:00 PM Eastern right here on CNN.

CORNISH: Now, the first batch of the Jeffrey Epstein documents are unsealed, what they reveal about Epstein's relationships with former presidents, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump.

MATTINGLY: And multiple states are on alert after a mass e-mail bomb threat was sent to government offices and officials across the country.

The latest on that situation, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:28:24]

MATTINGLY: Well, this morning we're waiting for the release of even more documents tied to accused sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein. The first batch, hundreds of pages tied to a lawsuit against Epstein were just unsealed last night. They include a deposition from one of Epstein's accusers, Johanna Sjoberg. She was asked: "Did Jeffrey ever talk to you about Bill Clinton?" To which he responded: "He said one time that Clinton liked them young," referring to girls.

CORNISH: Sjoberg also recalled a time on Epstein's plane when the pilots told them they couldn't land in New York and had to land in Atlantic City instead. According to Sjoberg: "Jeffery said. Great, we'll call up Trump, and we'll go to -- I don't recall the name of the casino -- but we'll go to the casino."

Neither Clinton nor Trump are accused of any wrongdoing involving Epstein.

MATTINGLY: And joining us now is Holly Baltz. She's the investigations editor at "The Palm Beach Post." She has been covering the Epstein case now for years. And given that context, Holly, based on what you've seen up to this point, is there anything in the unsealed documents that provided information we didn't know?

HOLLY BALTZ, INVESTIGATIONS EDITOR, "THE PALM BEACH POST": You know, there are some names that we hadn't seen or seen much of before -- magician, David Copperfield, who asked someone you know, have you -- did you know they're paying girls for massages, and they're paying girls to bring people for massages? Of course, Michael Jackson was there, but no huge headlines thus far.

CORNISH: One of the things about these documents though is we are getting a better sense of Miss Maxwell, the person who was and what her demeanor was like when she was questioned during this deposition. What did you see in those notes? [08:30:10]