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Former President Trump to Balance Courtroom Appearances with Campaigning in Republican Presidential Primary; President Biden to Deliver Speech at Mother Emanuel AME Church in South Carolina; Republican Presidential Candidates Campaign in Iowa Ahead of Upcoming Caucuses; Sec. Austin Didn't Tell Biden or Congress about Hospitalization; Missing Alaska Airlines Door Plug Found in Backyard; First US Moon Landing Mission in Decades Takes Flight. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired January 08, 2024 - 08:00   ET

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

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POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good Monday morning, everyone. So glad you're with us. It is 8:00 here on the east coast, 5:00 a.m. out west. I'm Poppy Harlow with Phil Mattingly in New York. There is a lot to get to. We begin with the Republican presidential candidates delivering their final pitches with only one week to go before the Iowa caucuses. But the frontrunner Donald Trump will be juggling his campaign with a hectic schedule in courtrooms. That's multiple courtrooms this week. Trump has also been busy ramping up his lies about January 6th. He is calling for the jailed rioters to be released and referring to them as hostages. He's also pivoting his attacks on the trail to Nikki Haley.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Nikki Haley and Ron aren't working for your interests. They're working for the interests of other nations and themselves, and so are those two. Nikki would sell you out just like she sold me out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: While Trump's campaign are clashing with his courtroom appearances, the rest of the candidates are going to be out meeting with voters today, and we're are going to bring you full coverage with CNN's Arlette Saenz live in Delaware, traveling with President Biden, and our David Chalian is standing by to break down the state of the race.

But let's lead things off with Kristen Holmes with more on Trump this morning. Kristen, how does the Trump team plan to juggle the courtroom appearances and campaign events that are running headlong into each other this week?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Phil and Poppy. Well, the one thing to point out here is that this is all by choice. Donald Trump is going to be ping-ponging between Iowa and various courtrooms this week, or at least is expected to, but he doesn't actually have to make these appearances. He is choosing to do so.

So what we know from the schedule so far, I'm going to do this week because if we take it any further, it's going to be very confusing. If you look at this week, tonight he's supposed to come into D.C. so that tomorrow he can be present when his legal team presents their arguments about presidential immunity in front of the D.C. appeals court. Then off to Iowa the next day for a townhall with FOX News, back to New York where he's expected to sit in on the closing arguments of his civil fraud case there, and then for the weekend back in Iowa, campaign events back to back until those caucuses on Monday.

Now, part of the decision to do this is Donald Trump's, and part of it is about the fact that he does care about these two particular cases. We know that he has been more invested in the New York civil fraud case than almost every other case, and he is fixated on this idea of presidential immunity.

But there is a secondary part of this. Donald Trump watches media coverage, follows media coverage very closely. He knows and his team knows that the fastest way to take all the oxygen out of the room and away from other candidates is to go to these court appearances, to stack his schedule like this. That takes the attention away from these other candidates who are trying to gain traction ahead of those caucuses. This is something that we have seen in his strategy. We know that he's going to be using these courtroom appearances as campaign stops. But this idea that he could be or couldn't be on the ground in Iowa this week because he has to be in court, that's just simply not true. He could be on the campaign trail if he wanted to be.

[08:05:08]

HARLOW: Great point. Kristen, thanks for the reporting, as always.

MATTINGLY: President Biden heads to Charleston, South Carolina, this morning with plans for an emotional to black voters in the state that saved his 2020 gain campaign. He's set to speak at Mother Emanuel AME Church today. That's the same place where a white supremacist shot and killed nine black people in 2015. Biden is expected to highlight the importance of fighting hate and extremism.

HARLOW: Meantime, some of Biden's staunchest allies are voicing some concerns about the way his campaign is being run. According to "The Washington Post," former President Obama had a bunch in the last couple months with Biden and privately suggested, quote, "the campaign needs to move more aggressively."

Arlette Saenz joins and from Wilmington, Delaware. Good morning to you. First of all, I wonder if there's any response from the president or the White House on that now public lunch with former President Obama, and also what we expect from the president today.

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: No, not quite yet, but President Biden is expected to head down to South Carolina today, really to give this speech that's an extension of the arguments he laid out on Friday when he warned that democracy is under threat. Political violence needs to be condemned in this country, and really issued his most forceful condemnation of former president Donald Trump yet this campaign cycle.

But the fact that Biden is traveling to Mother Emanuel AME Church to deliver this speech is important. The campaign says that the president plans to remind voters that the hate that occurred on that day at Mother Emanuel Church when nine black worshippers were gunned down, that that hate still exists in the country and it's incumbent on political leaders to condemn and try to root out hate, violence, and extremism in this country.

But the fact -- the campaign really believes that these arguments about democracy and pushing back on political violence are something that will resonate with voters heading into November. One point that they're stressing today and highlighting is the fact that they raised more than $1 million in the 24 hours since that speech at Valley Forge. That's according to a campaign official trying to highlight some of the momentum they have around these issues.

But another reason why this trip down to South Carolina is important is because who Biden will be speaking to there. Black voters were a critical part of the president's coalition, and they will need that turnout to also be up in this 2024 election. If you take a look at polling, there's about a 62 percent approval rating among black voters. That is slightly higher than the general voting electorate in their approval ratings of President Biden.

But then there are signs of narrowing in his support. The exit polls from 2020 found that Biden won black voters by 87 percent, but then if you look at that Quinnipiac poll, he is now with about 80 percent of support from black voters and 17 percent support for former President Trump. Now, one of the president's campaign co-chairs Jim Clyburn said that he's expressed some concerns to the president directly, saying that so far they have been unable to break through the MAGA wall. But this South Carolina primary will be a key test of whether Joe Biden can turn out and test his enthusiasm among black voters heading into the 2024 election.

MATTINGLY: A cornerstone of any Democratic coalition, but most certainly President Biden's Democratic coalition. Arlette Saenz, thank you.

HARLOW: Let's bring in David Chalian, our political director, for more. Let's start on there, Clyburn's concerns, Obama's concerns, Democratic Congresswoman Abigail Spanberge who is now running for governor of Virginia, just echoed Clyburn's concerns. She's also a bit worried. What do you think this all portends?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: I think the concerns are why we are seeing what we're seeing from President Biden on Friday and today. I think these two things go hand in hand. In talking to senior Biden campaign officials, guys, they believe -- they're targeted universes of voters. So folks that dropped off after 2020, totally disengaged from the political process that may be natural pieces of their base, young voters, voters of color, need an awakening to remind them that this is political season, and that as the Biden team sees it, this threat is very real not just to democracy as a theory, but to what democracy protects, your freedom to vote, your freedom for choice, all those things. That's the argument.

The other universe of voters are the more traditional, persuadable swing voters. And in both of these groups, the Biden team believes people are not of the mind that Donald Trump is actually back on the political scene in a real way. They don't really believe he's going to be the nominee despite all of us covering this day in and day out knowing he is very much the likely Republican nominee.

So part of what Friday was not just setting the stakes and the message, but also sort of grabbing the country by the lapels and saying, it's 2024. It is happening now, and it's time to get engaged.

[08:10:3]

HARLOW: This year it's happening. This year.

CHALIAN: Yes.

MATTINGLY: David, it's such a good point. I dispute the idea we follow politics closer than other people, especially David Chalian.

(LAUGHTER)

MATTINGLY: But if there was ever a weekend that demonstrated that Trump is back and Trump is what Democrats feared in 2016 and 2020, and why they won in 2018 and did better than expected in 2022, it was this weekend. It was his remarks on Saturday kind of playing the old, to some degree, deeply offensive hits related to a POW in John McCain, saying he could negotiate the Civil War. Do you think that this moment breaks through and does the shaking of the lapels like Biden's team wants?

CHALIAN: Obviously, I don't think this has any impact in terms of the Republican electorate as we head a week out to the caucuses, Phil. But I think the Biden campaign at least welcomes Donald Trump back into the spotlight in this way, and using this kind of rhetoric, whether it's the continued lies about the 2020 election and focused on the past, or whether it is saying things like Abraham Lincoln could have negotiated his way out of Civil War, which just raises a whole host of questions about what that means actually.

This is exactly the kind of stuff that kept independents at bay in 2020 after they were with him in 2016 and helped deliver Biden the White House, and as you noted, kept those folks away from the Republicans in 18 and 22 in the midterms as well. So it is exactly this kind of rhetoric that the Biden team believes is their best shot at highlighting so that those folks in the middle don't swing back to Donald Trump's direction the way they were in 2016.

HARLOW: David, let's talk about Iowa. We are one week away from the Iowa caucuses. You spent a lot of time in Iowa. You were at the state fair. You go back quite often. Listen to what Ron DeSantis said on CBS yesterday morning about his chances in Iowa.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You have never lost a political race before in your career. You are a second in the CBS Iowa projections. Is that victory enough for you?

GOV. RON DESANTIS, (R) FLORIDA: Well, we got to win a majority of the delegates. This is a long process. We're doing really well in Iowa. You know, I kind of like being underestimated. We're going to do well in Iowa, but we're also going to be competing in all these other states.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: It was the part that struck me was I kind of like being underestimated. What does Ron DeSantis need to do in Iowa to show people who have seen a deflated campaign that they are wrong?

CHALIAN: Well, you could hear in his answer there, Poppy, right, that no matter what his result is in Iowa, he's going to define it as doing well in Iowa, right? And what I think the political world at this point is going to be looking for a week from tonight is when voters actually get involved, and the first voters in this process are these Iowa Republican caucus-goers, do the results end up looking like all that public polling out there with Donald Trump with such a dominant lead, or do they look somewhat different?

Because I think if, indeed, DeSantis's results overperforms where his polling is right now, he's going to make an argument to be able to get some funding to move this campaign forward. If it looks worse than the public polling right now, I think Ron DeSantis is going to be in a real world of hurt.

HARLOW: Thank you, David. Talk to you soon.

CHALIAN: Sure.

HARLOW: This Wednesday night, 9:00 p.m. eastern, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash will moderate CNN's Republican presidential debate live, of course, from Iowa.

MATTINGLY: There's new information on why part of an Alaska Airlines plane blew off midflight. Investigators recovering a critical clue overnight and revealing the other issues before the midair emergency.

HARLOW: Also this morning, the Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is still in the hospital. We do have new insight into why the White House didn't know for days.

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[08:17:17]

MATTINGLY: Well this morning, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin remains in the hospital recovering from complications tied to an elective procedure. Now, we're told Austin is doing okay, but there are serious questions about his decision to keep his hospitalization secret for several days.

Neither Austin's deputy nor the White House knew he was hospitalized until three days after he was admitted. That's according to two Defense Department officials.

And according to the Pentagon, Austin had the elective procedure on December 22nd and went home the next day. Then on January 1st, Austin was taken by ambulance to Walter Reed after experiencing "severe pain." He was admitted to the ICU.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was notified on the second, the next day. Austin's deputy, Kathleen Hicks assumed some of his duties that day, but she wasn't informed that he was hospitalized until January 4th. January 4th is the same day President Biden found out, Congress learned a day later, as did the rest of the public.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Pentagon says that Austin resumed his duties on Friday while he was in the hospital. The White House says President Biden spoke to Austin on Saturday and has complete confidence in him; others, not as much.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE PENCE, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The handling of this by the Secretary of Defense is totally unacceptable. I think it was a dereliction of duty and the Secretary and the administration frankly, need to step forward and give the American people the facts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Former Vice President Mike Pence.

With us now, CNN military analyst, General Mark Hertling. He is a friend of Secretary Austin's and a former classmate of his at West Point.

You know, we just heard General, Abigail Spanberger, who is on the Intel Committee, former CIA officer, a Democrat, say it is not appropriate how this was handled. Do you agree?

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING (RET), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: I do agree with that.

I think Secretary Austin did make a mistake or his staff made a mistake in not notifying the correct people, but I think we'll learn more about this when he is released and he is allegedly going to be released today.

What happened on the 23rd -- and he was on leave during that period -- he took leave specifically to do a medical procedure and then came back and was readmitted due to, from my understanding, pain.

I fault him for that. Any commander knows that they have to notify their boss when something serious is going on that might take them out of the loop, but it appears that the right procedures were put in place, he named his deputy, Kathy Hicks to take over for him.

And from what I understand, and I've talked to senior administration officials, he was always in communications with the people at the Defense Department and the White House.

MATTINGLY: General, I think what I'm struck by, public disclosure, I'm a member of the media, I have my own issues with that and we can talk about that at length anytime you want.

[08:20:07]

But I think it's the chain of command point that you're making, both up and down in the sense that the National Security adviser, not finding out that his Secretary of Defense at a moment of extreme tension throughout the world where US forces are coming under increasing attack by Iranian proxies on a daily basis at this point, that the National Security adviser wouldn't be informed, the president wouldn't be informed, how that's possible.

HERTLING: Well, Phil, what I'd suggest is the communication was intact. I know from a senior leader's perspective, even as a three- star general, I had a camo team with me every moment of every day, there are no days off. You're working 24/7.

Secretary Austin has a much more intense schedule than I ever had. He's been traveling a lot. That communication team, that's up wherever he is. His staff knew where he was. As I understand it, he was constantly communicating with the right people, but he was in pain and he was being treated for that.

And what I think is, he knows he made a mistake, he admitted that, but at the same time, Phil, one of the things that's important in the Department of Defense, and in the US medical system, is the privacy, it is a balancing for telling the public what's going on with you.

Now, it's one thing to tell your boss and he admitted that he was mistaken in not doing that, but he also reminded people, hey, this is my procedure. It's my personal privacy that is at stake here and I would bet that sometime this week when he's released, he is going to bring the Pentagon press corps together and explain what happened.

But I would almost bet that he is not going to discuss what the issue was, the physical issue that he was getting treatment for.

HARLOW: General Mark Hertling, thank you. Obviously, we wish him the best. Hope he makes full recovery, hope he does get out of the hospital very soon.

HERTLING: Yes.

HARLOW: Thank you.

HERTLING: The same here. Yes, thanks.

HARLOW: Of course.

New this morning, a crucial missing piece of an Alaska Airlines plane has been found as investigators try to figure out why a gaping hole blew open on the side of the jet in midair.

The NTSB says the Boeing's 737 Max door plug has been discovered in someone's backyard in Portland, Oregon. These are some new images this morning from investigators. What they show is headrest and seat cushions ripped off by the force of the depressurization and we're now learning that the plane's cabin pressure warning light had gone off three times, including the day before the flight.

Alaska Airlines had actually restricted this same specific plane from flying over the ocean to Hawaii in case it needed to land quickly.

I asked the head of the NTSB about that when she joined us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: But if there's a precaution on where a plane can fly, should that plane be flying anywhere?

JENNIFER HOMENDY, NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD CHAIR: And that's what we're looking at. It is something that is a concern for us, so we're going to look. But again, I would just caution, it may have absolutely nothing to do with what occurred on that day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: The NTSB also says two cell phones that were likely flung from the plane were found in a yard, on the side of the road. One of them were still working and had an Alaska Airlines baggage receipt e- mail.

MATTINGLY: Well, also this morning, the first lunar lander in the US has launched in more than five decades, it is on his way to the moon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Five, four, three -- we have ignition, and lift off of the first United Launch Alliance Vulcan rocket, launching a new era in spaceflight to the moon and beyond.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Well, if all goes to plan, the Peregrine will touch down on February 23rd after taking off from Cape Canaveral. It is expected to become the first commercial mission to land on the moon as part of NASA's collaboration with private space companies.

CNN's space and defense correspondent, Kristin Fisher joins us now, and Kristin, tell us about this because I wasn't really aware of anything, and all sudden I saw amazing pictures this morning and this is history.

KRISTIN FISHER, CNN SPACE AND DEFENSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Phil, this was such a significant launch. So many firsts, I mean, first of all, if successful, this will be the first time that an American spacecraft has landed on the surface of the moon since the end of the Apollo program back in 1972. That is how long it's been.

But the big difference here is, back then that was a US government NASA mission. This is not. This spacecraft was designed, built, operated by a private company called Astrobotic, and if it is successful, it'll be the first private company to land a spacecraft on the surface of the moon, something that only very few countries have been able to do.

And then the other big first here, Phil, is not just the spacecraft on top of the rocket, but the rocket itself, the Vulcan Centaur rocket. This is the first time it has ever flown. It was built by the United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin and it is incredibly significant for the Pentagon, in particular because it is counting on this rocket to launch national security payloads and spy satellites in the future -- Phil.

[08:25:17]

MATTINGLY: Yes, it is a huge moment.

One of the most fascinating elements though, in addition to what you would expect, delivering NASA scientific equipment, it is also taking mementos and the ashes of several people to the moon. What more can you tell us about this?

FISHER: Yes, this bit has been so controversial in recent days.

So two of the customers that are paying to have cargo or payloads on top of this rocket and inside this spacecraft are two companies called Celestis and Elysium Space and they do what's called lunar memorials, the first of its kind. They are carrying little capsules containing cremated human remains for a lunar burial.

And the Navajo Nation, the largest group of Native Americans in the United States is very upset about this when they found out about this a few weeks ago, because they say that this amounts to desecration of a sacred space to their culture and Navajo cosmology: The moon is sacred in Navajo cosmology.

And so they appealed to the White House. The White House held a last minute meeting to try to see if they could address some of the Navajo -- the Navajo Nation's concerns, but it was not enough, as you can see, to delay this flight because it was a successful launch in the wee hours of this morning, Phil. I had to be up at 2:00 AM.

MATTINGLY: And I have no doubt, you probably were knowing how you do with space.

Kristin Fisher, we always appreciate it.

FISHER: I had to. I couldn't miss it.

MATTINGLY: Thank you, my friend. HARLOW: Well, the Supreme Court reinstates Idaho's strict abortion

ban that prevents the procedure even in medical emergencies. One OB GYN here with us to talk about what that actually means for their practice.

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