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CNN This Morning

Trump in Court as Lawyers Argue He's Immune from Prosecution; Airlines Find 'Loose Hardware' on Boeing 737 MAX-9 Jets; Haley Cuts Trump's NH Lead to Single Digits; 40M+ Under Storm Threats Across the Country; Review Ordered After Austin's Secret Hospital Stay. Aired 6- 6:30a ET

Aired January 09, 2024 - 06:00   ET

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

[06:00:18]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. So glad you're with us. I'm Poppy Harlow with Phil Mattingly in New York.

And it is such a big day, a historic day for Donald Trump and really for the country. In just a few hours, Trump will be in court instead of on the campaign trail as his team argues that he is immune from criminal charges for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Also this morning, this just in. Nikki Haley chipping away at Trump's lead in a critical primary state. Brand-new CNN polling shows that she's trimmed his lead in New Hampshire to single digits.

And United Airlines says it has found loose bolts on a number of its Boeing 737 MAX-9 planes. That's the same model plane that saw a door plug blow out mid-flight on Friday. What Boeing's saying now. We'll have it for you.

CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.

HARLOW: Here is where we begin. Just hours from now, three judges in Washington, D.C., will take on a landmark question. Is Donald Trump immune from being held criminally responsible for his actions to try to overturn the results of the 2020 election?

The former president's lawyers will argue the answer is yes, that he is immune, and Donald Trump will be there to watch them do it.

MATTINGLY: Now, six days out from the Iowa caucuses, the GOP frontrunner will not be on the trail today. He's choosing -- and "choosing" is a key word here -- to bring his campaign to the courthouse.

This is a monumental day. The implications could change the way we understand what presidents are allowed to do.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz leads us off, tracking all of what's happening at the courthouse.

Katelyn, Trump is voluntarily sitting in the courtroom today instead of being on the campaign trail in Iowa. Why?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Great question, Phil, because he doesn't have to be there. And it's actually highly unusual for someone who's a criminal defendant, or even a party in a lawsuit, to go and sit and watch an appeals hearing like this today.

But this really isn't just any appeals hearing. This is an appeals hearing on a question that has never been looked at before. How much protection is there around the presidency and given to people who had served in the presidency, whenever they're charged with crimes related to what they were doing while holding that office?

And so Donald Trump and his lawyers, they have this one shot today right now before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, before these three judges in Washington, D.C., to make their case that Trump should not have to go to trial, that he shouldn't be charged, because he was president and has a level of immunity. That's their argument.

And they are also making this argument that his case should be paused while the appeals court figures this out. That's going to be a major question today, as well.

The three judges looking at this: Karen Henderson, who is a Republican appointee, has been on the bench a long time and has had a say in a lot of questions about the executive branch of the presidency before. And then two other judges who are fairly new to this circuit: Michelle Childs and Florence Pan, but have both written quite weighty questions and opinions before for this court.

We're going to be watching to see what they ask, what direction they take the lawyers today as they're arguing.

They're not going to be asking Donald Trump any questions directly, and they also are not going to be ruling today. But how they're asking these questions and what they're looking at is really a significant thing.

The Supreme Court, if it goes there, which it's likely to do, they don't have to take this case if it goes before them. This court is the court that makes the determinations now. They did in Watergate. And so we're in really a significant moment today.

MATTINGLY: Yes. It's a moment of enormous consequence for the country and for how the executive branch operates but also for other cases that Trump is dealing with right now.

Trump also wants the subversion case in Georgia to be dismissed, arguing immunity. Is that kind of a through line for his team right now?

POLANTZ: Very much so. And it's because this is the best argument that he has. This is the biggest argument that he's able to put to the court before trial. It's this question of does he, as a criminal defendant, have some level of immunity? And so while he's arguing this in federal court, in the appeals court

today in Washington, with his lawyers trying to hold off that trial, his lawyers also yesterday filed several filings in the state of Georgia, where he's facing charges in Fulton County at the state level. They're arguing a very similar thing: presidential immunity. They're also claiming he shouldn't be tried because of double jeopardy, and he did have a lack of due process.

[06:05:09]

But that all has to be worked out by the courts, still -- Phil.

MATTINGLY: All right. Katelyn Polantz, thank you -- Poppy.

HARLOW: For more on what we can expect today, CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig is here with us.

If they could have heard our conversation just a couple moments ago. This is totally fascinating. Walk us through what's going to happen today, beyond what Katelyn laid out so well.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: A little law school geeking out.

Here's where we are today. We are at the U.S. Court of Appeals, federal Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. That's the mid-level Court of Appeals below the Supreme Court.

The way we got here, of course, is this started out in the district court, the trial-level court, where Donald Trump argued he was immune from prosecution, because the conduct falls within his scope of the presidency.

The district judge, Tanya Chutkan, forcefully rejected that. She ruled, memorably, There is no, quote, "divine right of kings."

Now, when we get -- go into court today, these will be the judges who are sitting. Judge Henderson was put on the bench by George H.W. Bush, the father, back in 1990. Judges Childs and Pan were put on the bench by judge -- by President Joseph Biden.

Now, we're not going to see these judges today, by the way. Important to know, there's no TV broadcast of what's going to happen. But there will be a live audio feed, so we'll be able to hear the questioning. And oftentimes, having done a bunch of these arguments in a three- judge panel, you can tell pretty strongly where they're leaning by the number and the tone of the questions that they're asking.

HARLOW: So talk to us about the argument here, because Trump's team is trying to essentially extend one of the Nixon rulings and say, no, that immunity extends to criminal prosecution --

HONIG: Yes.

HARLOW: -- and then what's the other side of it?

HONIG: So this originates, as many things in this area do, with Richard Nixon. Surprisingly, though, nothing to do with Watergate.

HARLOW: Yes.

HONIG: Back in 1982, a guy who had been a federal employee under Nixon named Fitzgerald sued the federal government and Richard Nixon for him being fired.

HARLOW: Right.

HONIG: And the courts ruled, no, you cannot sue the president for firing a federal employee. That's within the scope of what the president --

HARLOW: Does.

HONIG: -- is supposed to do as president. So that gave us the notion of civil immunity.

For today's purposes, there's two questions, really. First of all, is there even such thing as criminal immunity? We don't know that. The courts never ruled that there even could be criminal immunity.

And then if so, the second question -- and this will be a big focus today in the questioning -- is was Donald Trump's conduct within the outer boundary of his job as president?

HARLOW: Those words matter a lot. Why?

HONIG: Out of boundary. Watch for that. Because if he's outside the scope of his job as president, he's out of luck; there's not going to be any immunity.

HARLOW: And in terms of the defense and how it all stacks up with Jack Smith's calendar, when he wants his child to start, and oh, by the way, when the election is.

HONIG: Yes. So the calendar, as always, is super important here.

Let's just see a couple key points here. OK. The election, of course, is on November 5th.

The current trial date for this case is March 4th. That's 55 days from today; I counted. And of course, in the meantime, we've got the hush- money trial scheduled for late March, and then we've got the Mar-a- Lago trial scheduled for May.

In the ordinary course of appeals, Poppy, given that we're at the Court of Appeals, they've got to go to the Supreme Court, this case, the case we're talking about today, that would move into mid-summer. That's going to be really close to the election.

And so what Jack Smith is asking the Court of Appeals to do today, is after you rule within five days, I want you to send it back down here, so we can resume our trial prep, even if it goes up to the Supreme court. So we could actually see this court at the same time being argued at

the Supreme Court level, while they're getting back on track for the trial here --

HARLOW: Yes.

HONIG: -- in the district court.

HARLOW: Which -- which Trump's team says they're not -- they shouldn't be able to proceed with preparing.

HONIG: Yes. Trump's team says put it all on hold until we're done up here.

HARLOW: All right. Thank you, Elie.

HONIG: All right.

HARLOW: Appreciate it very much -- Phil.

MATTINGLY: In another story we are closely following this morning, we have new details that are emerging after that terrifying incident Friday when a section of an Alaska Airlines jet blew off mid-flight.

Federal officials are now testing that detached piece of the plane for clues about what might have led to the, quote, "explosive decompression."

Now, after the door plug was recovered from a Portland teacher's backyard, technicians from Alaska and United Airlines say they found loose hardware, including bolts, on a number of Boeing 737 MAX-9 aircraft that have been grounded for inspections.

CNN's Pete Muntean joins us, live from Washington, D.C.

Pete, this has been fast-moving from an investigative perspective. What more are we learning about what happened inside the plane and about those loose parts people are talking about?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Major developments all the time here, Phil.

Remember, this investigation is focusing on what's called the door plug. That is the door on the Boeing 737 MAX-9, only visible from the outside. Normal window wall and seats on the inside.

Alaska Airlines has been preparing its plane to comply with these FAA emergency mandated inspections. And it now says its mechanics have found hardware that was loose. They were able to tell that with the naked eye.

United Airlines made a similar announcement yesterday. So this means that both airlines that operate these MAX-9s in the U.S. have found loose hardware. That is significant, because it could point to why this door came off in the first place. The National Transportation Safety Board says the door on Alaska

Flight 1282 essentially shot off like a rocket. The door is held in place by 12 different stops. High-pressure air in the plane keeps the door pressed against those stops. That's why it's called a plug.

[06:10:12]

But if these four stop bolts are not installed, then that can cause this door to wiggle out of place of those stops.

Now, the NTSB has recovered the door in question; came down in a backyard. But Chair Homendy says they are still looking for the bolts.

HARLOW: Pete, we are --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CLINT CROOKSHANKS, AEROSPACE ENGINEER, NTSB: The exam to date has shown that the door, in fact, did translate upward. All 12 stops became disengaged, allowing it to blow out of the fuselage. We found that both guide tracks on the plug were fractured.

We have not yet recovered the four bolts that restrain it from its vertical movement, and we have not yet determined if they existed there. That will be determined when we take the plug to our lab in Washington, D.C.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MUNTEAN: Now, that door came down in the backyard of a physics teacher named Bob Sauer. Talk about a physics lesson. He says it's the most exciting thing to ever happen on his street. Only blocks away from where passengers' cell phones were found, essentially sucked out of that huge hole on Alaska Flight 1282.

The NTSB says people on the ground are still finding things. One found a plastic window frame. Another found a headset, likely one of the headsets sucked off of one of the heads of the pilots.

The force of that blowout on Friday, so strong that the cockpit door flew open -- Poppy, Phil.

HARLOW: That's astonishing in so many respects. Think about that. The headset blows off one of the pilots, or first officer. I guess goes back to row 25 or 26, Pete, and out the door? Wow.

MUNTEAN: Yes, and essentially 26 -- 26 rows ahead of where this was.

HARLOW: Yes.

MUNTEAN: The cockpit door slammed open. What is interesting --

HARLOW: Yes?

MUNTEAN: -- is that the pilots were unaware that this was going to happen. And it is a design in the -- a feature, essentially, in the Boeing 737 MAX-9, that when the airplane goads goes through this rapid decompression, the door forces open.

And so now, NTSB Chair Homendy is saying the manufacturer, Boeing, needs to tell the pilots that, when this kind of thing happens, they need to be alerted about this. It's not in any of the checklists or the manual.

HARLOW: Yes. Of course. Wow. Thank you.

MATTINGLY: Well, just released, brand-new CNN polling out of New Hampshire showing Nikki Haley closing the gap on Donald Trump. We're going to break down the numbers.

HARLOW: And the entire state of Iowa under a winter storm warning. How the snow and the extreme temperatures are already impacting the caucuses.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:16:21]

MATTINGLY: This morning we have a brand-new CNN poll out of New Hampshire that shows Nikki Haley momentum is real, narrowing the gap with Donald Trump in the state down to single digits.

While Trump stands at 39 percent in New Hampshire, Haley now just seven points behind him at 32 percent. That means Trump has dropped three points in New Hampshire, from 42 percent back in November.

Haley, meanwhile, has surged, a whopping 12 points, up from 20 percent.

And despite Trump being the clear frontrunner in the race, it's Haley who holds a commanding lead with moderate Republicans. The polls showing that she has 55 percent of their support, while Trump only has 13 percent.

But Trump does still lead among conservative Republicans. He's at 60 percent of their support; Haley only at 20 percent.

Finally, the poll shows that 80 percent of Trump's New Hampshire voters say they will definitely vote for him. Only 54 percent of Haley's say the same. That, of course, is something we're going to need to explore in the weeks ahead.

For now, let's go to CNN's Eva McKend in Des Moines, Iowa. Eva, the polls right now in New Hampshire, promising for Ambassador Haley. Does it seem like her attacks are resonating against Donald Trump on the trail?

EVA MCKEND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They are, Phil. She seems to have landed on a sweet spot with Republican primary voters, at least as illustrated by this poll.

You know, when you show up to her events, you will find folks who are "never Trumpers," those who are moderate and independent voters who never supported the former president. But there are also those who did support Trump in past elections who are just now looking for an alternative.

You know, she often says on the trail that her attacks of Trump are going to be really pointed on policy, that politics are personal enough. And that seems to be resonating with at least some of the folks that she needs it to resonate with. She spoke more about this at a town hall last night. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIKKI HALEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Just because President Trump says something doesn't make it true. Look, I think President Trump was the right president at the right time. I agree with a lot of his policies.

But rightly or wrongly, chaos follows him, and y'all know I'm right. Chaos follows him. And we -- we can't be a country in disarray, and the world on fire, and go through four more years of chaos. We won't survive it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCKEND: Now, Haley's opponents, they really have pushed back against this and argue that she speaks sort of out of both sides of her mouth here, that she's imprecise.

Governor DeSantis, in an ad airing now throughout the state, says that he is the one that really embodies Iowa's values and really touts that he has visited all 99 counties.

So this perhaps could shape up to be a competitive contest and here are these candidates. They say don't look at the polling that shows Trump far out ahead, that they are still competing here and respecting the process, Phil.

MATTINGLY: All right, Eva McKend. I'm looking nostalgically at your beautiful backdrop right now, which is easy to do in a temperature- controlled studio, as opposed to being outdoors in Des Moines. Eva McKend, thank you -- Poppy.

HARLOW: Speaking of that, this morning, more than 40 million people across the country are under the threat of severe storms after Monday's whiteout conditions in the Midwest shut down some major roads, created havoc in the Pacific Northwest and the plains, and dumped more than a foot of snow in parts of the Northeast.

In the south, severe thunderstorms brought powerful winds and rain. That is where we find our meteorologist, Derek van Dam. He's live in New Orleans for us. What are we looking at ahead?

[06:20:00]

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, Poppy, tens of millions of Americans are feeling the brunt of this impactful storm that has alerts stretching over 2,000 miles of the Eastern Seaboard. From blizzard conditions to severe weather, this feels like a mid- spring storm, with current tornado warnings firing across the Florida Peninsula. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VAN DAM (voice-over): A massive winter storm is making its way across the country with over 40 million people under a severe storm threat. This massive winter storm is making its way to the Midwest and East Coast today.

Residents across the Four Corners and plains region were left in blizzard conditions Monday afternoon. Interstates in Colorado, New Mexico, Nebraska, and Kansas closed due to low visibility and snow accumulation.

Here you can see in Kansas roadways had little to no visibility, which left state and county officials issuing dire warnings.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Snow and wind is carrying across our state, and it's causing slide offs and wrecks just like this.

VAN DAM (voice-over): In New Mexico, motorists were left stranded in whiteout conditions. The New Mexico Department of Transportation worked through the day to rescue dozens of drivers in stranded cars along a highway in the state.

The youngest rescued was a 4-month-old baby. Even one of the Colfax County Sheriff's Office deputies needed rescuing.

The Gulf region saw intense rainfall and high winds up to 71 miles per hour.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The clouds were solid black, and it was like they just set down on us.

VAN DAM (voice-over): In the Houston area, a huge wind and rainstorm left downed trees and damaged homes. This family's carport roof was blown clear off and landed in a tree on their property.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It looks like our tree just opened its arms and held that metal.

VAN DAM (voice-over): The roof at the NRG Stadium even started leaking ahead of the national championship game. You can see Michigan and Washington's players warming up on the field as the water came in.

And in Louisiana, the storm left buildings collapsed and flash flooding in parts of the coastal regions of the state.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAN DAM: We've good a lot of weather to cover across the country. There is only one state in the U.S. that does not have weather alerts. That's North Dakota.

Focusing in on the immediate threat, it is the severe weather and the heavy rain across the Gulf Coast states.

Currently we have a tornado watch through this morning for the Florida Panhandle. And there have been tornado warnings issued just North of the Santa Rosa Beach region.

Weather prediction center also indicating rainfall rates of 2 to 3 inches per hour across this area. Severe weather threats going to continue from the Florida Peninsula right through the coastal areas of the Carolinas.

So heads-up, Savannah, Charleston, all the way to Wilmington today.

Then we focus that rain threat, the potential of flooding all the way up the East Coast as heavy rain falls on top of the recent snowpack across the Northeast. So heads-up New York, all the way to the nation's capital -- Poppy.

HARLOW: Yes. Pretty much everywhere unless you're in Fargo. Derek, thank you very much.

VAN DAM: Yes.

VAN DAM (voice-over): There's a review now underway at the defense secretary's office after Lloyd Austin was hospitalized and didn't tell his deputy or the president. We're going to have the details, next.

HARLOW: And what officials believe caused a sudden explosion at a hotel in Fort Worth, Texas. Just look at that. We've learned more details overnight.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:27:07]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ADMIRAL MIKE MULLEN, FORMER JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: I don't think there's any question that Secretary Austin knows he made a mistake here.

We come from a culture of accountability, and he's taken full responsibility for the mistake. And he's committed to ensure that it doesn't happen again, and I believe him in that regard.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: That was former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, telling CNN the defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, knows he made a mistake not informing President Biden and key Pentagon officials about his hospitalization.

Austin's office is now ordering a 30-day review of the Pentagon's notification policy for when the defense secretary needs to transfer authority to his deputy. The Pentagon says there are shortfalls in the process that can, quote, "definitely be improved."

CNN's Natasha Bertrand is for us live at the Pentagon. Natasha, in terms of this review, what do we expect to come from it?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Phil, this is really going to be a review of the processes surrounding the notifications that are sent to senior national security and military leaders, as well as the White House when the secretary of defense needs to transfer his authorities to the deputy secretary of defense.

It's also going to involve a review of how the deputy is notified, because we first reported that Secretary Austin's office did not notify the deputy secretary that he was actually in the hospital when they asked her to assume his responsibilities until days after he had actually been admitted to Walter Reed.

So what we are learning from this memo is that, quote, "This review will help to ensure: one, clarity and transparency when a determination has been made that certain authorities have been transferred; and two, that proper and timely notification has been made to the president and White House; and, as appropriate the United States Congress and the American public."

Now, as you'll recall, the U.S. Congress and the American public were not notified of Austin's hospitalization until about four days after he was actually admitted to Walter Reed.

So this process is basically going to help ensure that all relevant parties are notified when the secretary of defense is otherwise indisposed.

Now, importantly, this memo makes no mention of the fact that the Pentagon did not also notify the White House of the secretary's December 22nd elective medical procedure that he underwent at Walter Reed. And that was a one-night hospital stay that also involved the transfer of his authorities to his deputy secretary, Kathleen Hicks.

And so the memo asks the Pentagon's general counsel, as well as other senior officials, to examine the -- the events stemming from his January 1st hospitalization; makes no mention of that December 22nd stay, which of course, we all have questions about why the Pentagon did not also notify the White House and the president when the secretary was in the hospital overnight -- guys.

MATTINGLY: Natasha, you've been doing great reporting on this, but to your point, so many unanswered questions still, which is remarkable. Thank you.

HARLOW: This morning, investigators believe that it was a gas explosion that caused the blast at a hotel in Fort Worth, Texas. Just look at that devastation.

Twenty-one people were hurt, some critically. Thankfully, no deaths have been reported.

[06:30:00]