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CNN This Morning
Haley and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) Spar at CNN Debate, Trump Holds Town Hall; Today, Trump Attends Closing Arguments in New York Civil Fraud Trial; Hunter Biden Makes Surprise Appearance at Contempt Hearing. Aired 7-7:30a ET
Aired January 11, 2024 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Said in a statement, it's not just about how many games we won and lost but it's about the legacy and how we went about it.
[07:00:05]
We always tried to do it the right way.
And now the talk is who is going to replace Saban, as the next Tide head coach, Oregon's Dan Lanning, who was a graduate assistant in Alabama in 2015. The heavy favorite right now, according to Bet Online, you got Lane Kiffin, who coached under Saban for three seasons. He's second on that list. He also got Texas' Steve Sarkisian. He also coached under Saban. He's a third favorite. Clemson's Dabo Sweeney, he played on the '92 Alabama National Championship team. He's up there. You got some long shots, including Ohio State's coach Ryan Day down there, Phil.
But, you know, you got a lot of fan bases now around the country kind of panicking because they might lose their coach if they decide to go to Alabama. But I don't know who wants that job because they're impossible shoes to fill.
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Talk about footsteps to follow, the process, the process. What a leader. Thanks, Andy.
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, bud.
SCHOLES: All right.
HARLOW: CNN This Morning starts right now.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: One-on-one on the debate stage were far more focused on each other than their competitor.
NIKKI HALEY, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You're invisible in New Hampshire and you've gone down in the polls in Iowa. Why should we think you can do anything in this country?
GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We don't need another mealy mouth politician who just tells you what she thinks you want to hear.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hard to see how they think they're going to be able to overtake it will barely laying a finger on him.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Chris Christie drops out.
CHRIS CHRISTIE, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: No one would tell the truth about Donald Trump.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Making unofficial remarks on a hot mic skewering his former rivals.
OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: How that reverberates into any potential endorsement, we will see.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: This does not affect the Iowa campaign, but going into New Hampshire, it certainly does.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: A New York judge has barred Donald Trump from delivering a closing argument at a civil fraud trial.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A new opportunity to criticize the judge.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He believes rules shouldn't apply to him, that he refuses to accept it, he gets to play the victim.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MATTINGLY: Well, a good Thursday morning, everyone. It is the top of the hour. I'm Phil Mattingly, Poppy Harlow in New York.
It was a big, huge night of politics and it's going to continue right on into today. We are showing you live pictures out of New York City. Former President Trump expected to be back in court today for closing arguments in that $370 million civil fraud case. Trump choosing to go to court instead of staying and campaigning in Iowa with less than four days until Monday's Iowa caucuses.
Now, he was in Des Moines last night at a town hall while his Republican rivals squared off at a CNN debate just a few miles away.
HARLOW: Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley sparring on policy issues with heated exchanges on immigration, the economy and overseas conflicts. They also offered tepid criticism of Republican frontrunner Trump, but they saved their sharpest attacks clearly for each other.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DESANTIS: When you need someone standing in fight for you, don't look for Nikki Haley. You won't be able to find her if you had a search warrant.
HALEY: You've got $150 million and you've gone down in the polls in Iowa. Why should we think you can manage or do anything in this country? DESANTIS: I debated the governor of California, Gavin Newsom. You know, I thought he lied a lot. Man, Nikki Haley may give him a run for his money and she may even be more liberal than Gavin Newsom is.
HALEY: But every time he lies, Drake University, don't turn this into a drinking game because you will be over-served by the end of the night.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: DeSantis went on to call Haley a, quote, mealy mouth politician. Haley plugged her new website, rondesantislies.com, 16 times last night.
MATTINGLY: That's a lot of times. And in another major shakeup, New Jersey of Governor Chris Christie no longer in the race, suspending his campaign for the White House, but not before. He was caught on a hot mic blasting his former rivals.
Eva McKend leads us off live from Des Moines. Eva, both candidates in the debate trying for a major standout moment, just four days left, did either of them get it?
EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: No doubt last night's debate was clarifying for some voters as policy differences really came into focus. The problem for both of them is that the former president, he remains the frontrunner, and they seemed reluctant to go after him too forcefully.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MCKEND (voice over): Former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley and Governor Ron DeSantis taking center stage in the final debate before the Iowa caucuses, and the gloves were off.
HALEY: If he would spend as much time trying to prove why he thinks he would be a good president, he would be doing a lot better in the polls.
DESANTIS: This is the UN way of thinking that we're somehow globalist.
You can take the ambassador out of the United Nations, but you can't take the United Nations out of the ambassador.
MCKEND: While the frontrunner was absent, Trump chose to attend a separate Fox News town hall event and teased a possible vice president.
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: I mean, I know who it's going to be.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you give us a hint.
TRUMP: I'll give you. We'll do another show sometime.
MCKEND: The dueling events taking place as one of Trump's biggest critics steps aside.
[07:05:00]
CHRISTIE: Anyone who is unwilling to say that he is unfit to be president of the United States is unfit themselves.
MCKEND: The former governor of New Jersey also found himself in a hot mic moment criticizing Haley.
CHRISTIE: She's going to get smoked, and you and I both know it. She's not up to this.
MCKEND: Trump seizing on it.
TRUMP: I know her very well and I happen to believe that Chris Christie is right.
So, I'm not exactly worried about it.
MCKEND: Haley and DeSantis reminding voters of Trump's absence from the debate stage again, something they both agreed on, but which voters don't seem to mind.
HALEY: I wish Donald Trump was up here on this stage. He needs to be defending his record.
DESANTIS: Donald Trump should be on this stage. He owes it to you here in Iowa.
MCKEND: But neither took the opportunity to strongly denounce him or argue he's unfit for office.
HALEY: So, when you look at Donald Trump, I have said, I think he was the right president at the right time. I agree with a lot of his policies, but his way is not my way.
DESANTIS: Trump is the nominee, it's going to be about January 6th, legal issues, criminal trials, the Democrats and the media would love to run with that.
MCKEND: But DeSantis and Haley spent most of the debate going after each other and trying to prove who can be the toughest on stage.
DESANTIS: Do not trust Nikki Haley with illegal immigration. That's like having the fox guard the hen house.
Nikki Haley also opposed the border wall in 2016. She said that -- she ridiculed it when Donald Trump was president. I'm telling you, you need a wall.
HALEY: Go to desantislies.com. I said you can't just build a wall. You have to do more than build a wall. It was having the wall and everything else. You can't trust what Ron is saying.
MCKEND: DeSantis arguing Haley's record as South Carolina's former governor proves she isn't ready for the White House. DESANTIS: She said she's always supported school choice, and she failed to deliver. She blames other people. Leadership is about getting things done. Stop making it excuses. Make it happen.
MCKEND: Firing back in a blistering takedown of his campaign.
HALEY: If leadership is about getting things done, how did you blow through $150 million in your campaign? We went and saved our money. We made sure we spent it right because you have to understand it's not your money. It's other people's money and you have to know how to handle it. If you can't handle the financial parts of a campaign, how is he going to handle the economy when it comes to the White House?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MCKEND (on camera): There's arguably more at stake here for Governor DeSantis, who is invested so heavily in Iowa. He'll often like to remind folks that he has visited all 99 counties. But the both of them, they're running out of time to make their case to Iowans. They're both crisscrossing the state. Four days left to go until the Iowa caucus.
And I should remind you, though they didn't make our debate stage last night, Asa Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas, Vivek Ramaswamy, they are competing here in Iowa as well.
MATTINGLY: An important reminder. Eva McKend, we appreciate you, as always. Thank you.
HARLOW: A lot to get to. CNN Senior Political Commentator Ana Navarro is with us, Kristen Soltis Anderson, CNN political commentator, Republican strategist, and pollster is with us, and Josh Barro, writer of the Very Serious Newsletter, and the host of the Very Serious podcast. Good morning, guys. Thank you for being here.
Ana, let me start with you, plus and minus for Haley and DeSantis last night.
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I just found the entire debate so exhausting. I was happy that it was being moderated by Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, both of whom have children. Because the bickering that went on there for two hours, I think, was exhausting and not a good look for Republicans.
You know, I saw a focus group afterwards that CNN did, I think it was Gary Tuchman, where he asked who won and who lost. And four said DeSantis had won, four said Haley had won, and two said Trump had won. I'm on the side that says Trump won.
Look, it's bad for the process that he didn't show up. It's disrespectful to voters. It's terrible for Iowa, but he's avoiding this circular firing squad, very infantile exchange of insults for two hours. It was insult-palooza.
MATTINGLY: And I think easily, and I know you have made the argument, it's a pretty smart political strategy by Trump and his team not to engage in things like this. He had his own town hall, I think tried to shift maybe the wording or framing of some of his most controversial remarks. We'll see if that's allowed to happen.
But part of the issue I think is whether or not you can attack the guy who's 30 points up. Would you think yes? When you look at the numbers, the type of attacks we saw last night and the decision not to attack on character, listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Do you believe Donald Trump has the character to be president again?
DESANTIS: Well, I'm running because I'm the guy that's going to be able to engineer a comeback for this country. I appreciated what President Trump did. But let's just be honest, he said he was going to build a wall and have Mexico pay for it. He did not deliver that. He said he was going to drain the swamp. He did not deliver that.
HALEY: I think the next president needs to have moral clarity.
[07:10:01]
When you look at Donald Trump, I have said, I think he was the right president at the right time. I agree with a lot of his policies, but his way is not my way. I don't have vengeance. I don't have vendettas. I don't take things personally.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: Why not -- the moral issues, the character issues, it's not like there's a shortage of them. Why don't they attack on that? What are they seeing? What are their campaigns seeing?
KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, what they're seeing is what happened to Chris Christie, which is that there wasn't a huge market in the Republican primary electorate for someone whose primary message is, Donald Trump is unfit for office. There's a small, not non-existent portion of the party that thinks that.
But for the most part, the rest of Republicans either are diehard Donald Trump fans, they're not going to be moved by anything, or they were open to new options, maybe open to a new direction but don't necessarily want someone whose main message is Donald Trump is bad.
The bind that that got folks like Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, and up until this point is, you do have to pull away some people who like Donald Trump, and you have to persuade them that you're better. And I think if you or somebody who's sitting on the sidelines considering Trump or these alternatives and you tuned into last night's debate, I'm not sure that anything you saw made you think, gosh, let me change my mind. And that's also what you saw in that CNN focus group. None of those participants said that these debates have really changed their mind in a big way.
HARLOW: Quite a town hall address, if you will, from Chris Christie, Josh, last night. Many people pointing to it as one of his best. Ironically, it's as he is dropping out, but what he said to this issue that was so striking is he talked about the soul of the country, and he said, by far, the most important issue is the character of the candidate.
A couple hours later, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, could have addressed that with Trump. They chose not to. What is the significance of Christie pulling out in this moment?
JOSH BARRO, WRITER, VERY SERIOUS NEWSLETTER: Well, I mean, I think partly it's, you know, if he stayed in and got 11 percent in New Hampshire or 9 percent or whatever would have been, then he would have been blamed for the fact that Nikki Haley didn't pick up those votes. And by getting out, he can basically say, this isn't my fault.
I mean, look, he, you know, he's here with this very clear and consistent message about Trump. I think it's bizarre that he couldn't find his way toward endorsing Nikki Haley if he really thinks that --
HARLOW: Well, this might be why. Can we listen to the hot mic moment last night here?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTIE: She's going to get smoked, and you and I both know her. She's not up to this.
DeSantis called me, petrified that I would be.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARRO: Politicians get past things like this all the time. The 1980 primary between Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. was extremely bitter There's that moment in New Hampshire where Ronald Reagan is like I'm paying for this microphone and basically trying to one-up George Bush Sr. there. And then you know They come around and they endorse and then Bush Sr. ends up on the ticket.
Politicians run races against people and then get out and endorse them all the time, even when it seems weird And so if Chris Christie's primary objective here is that he wants to stop Donald Trump from receiving the public Republican nomination, he ought to be able to put aside policy disagreements, disagreements about strategy. You know, even if he thinks that that Nikki Haley is an underwhelming politician isn't going to -- I mean, I don't think she's going to win this either. But how is it productive for him to be saying that in an environment where it's going to be heard and how is it productive --
NAVARRO: Though, if he endorsed her before Iowa?
BARRO: Well, I think you're right. I think it's probably better to wait post-Iowa and after New Hampshire. I think the posture that he's taken here I mean, I don't I don't know the extent to which if the -- he was actually thinking that he was keeping these sorts of comments under wraps. The endorsements can be less valuable now that everybody knows that he thinks she's going to get smoked, but we'll see. MATTINGLY: To that point, Trump last night very clearly having a general election strategy. Again, people are loath to give him credit for anything, but there was a different format and a different frame from him, and it was intentional. And to Josh's point, New Hampshire is kind of hit. It's kind of the ballgame. What is the level of transfer between Christie supporters to Haley that we've seen in the polling so far?
ANDERSON: ,So in CNN's polling, about six in ten Christie voters said that they would go to Nikki Haley next. And that question wasn't contingent on an endorsement. That was just, if your preferred candidate drops out, where do you go? But 60 percent is not 100 percent. And Haley needs about 100 percent of those people in order to be really competitive with Donald Trump.
The problem that she's going to run into is there's a choice between, say, her, DeSantis, Ramaswamy, but there's also the choice to stay home. And so does something like a Christie endorsement kind of give permission to those voters who are the independents, Democrats, who make up a big part of New Hampshire's electorate say, I know it's cold, I know you don't love these people, but you've got to turn out. That could have some value if he chose to go that way.
HARLOW: Iowans know how to deal with the cold, not as well as their neighbors to the north, but they know how to deal with the cold. I think they're going to be fine on Monday. Thank you all very much.
MATTINGLY: Thank you.
Well, in just a few hours, Donald Trump will head to another courtroom, this for his New York civil fraud trial.
[07:15:02]
You're not going to hear from him during the closing arguments, though. We're going to tell you why, coming up.
HARLOW: Also Israel in international court this morning to defend its actions in Gaza. It is a case with high-stakes that could shape this war.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARLOW: This morning, Donald Trump set to attend closing arguments in his $370 million New York civil fraud trial. The former president will not speak in court. According to emails between Trump's team and the judge, there had been discussions of having Trump speak during closing arguments.
MATTINGLY: Well, Judge Arthur Engoron wrote that Trump's team yesterday saying, quote, not having heard from you by the third extended deadline, I assume that Mr. Trump will not agree to the reasonable, lawful limits I have imposed as a precondition to giving a closing statement above and beyond those given by his attorneys, and that, therefore, he will not be speaking in court. Now, the judge argued that limits would have prevented Trump from delivering what he called a campaign speech.
[07:20:01]
Joining us now, CNN Senior Legal Analyst former assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Elie Honig and Temidayo Aganga-Williams, former senior investigative counsel for the January 6th select committee and former assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District Court.
Temidayo, is this rare, like what happened here? The emails back and forth trying to negotiate whether or not he would give a closing statement, the judge giving extended deadlines, and then say, you got seven minutes to respond to me, no response, you're not talking.
TEMIDAYO AGANGA-WILLIAMS, FORMER SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE COUNSEL, JAN. 6TH SELECT COMMITTEE: Yes, it is rare. And the rare part is the fact that the judge considered allowing the former president to deliver a closing argument.
HARLOW: At all?
AGANGA-WILLIAMS: At all. That's not normal. When you go to court and you choose to be represented, you have a lawyer for a reason. That lawyer represents you, speaks on your behalf. You don't get to go back and forth between whether you want to be pro se, meaning representing yourself or having counsel president represent you.
So, typically, a judge would not consider this. You wouldn't have the opportunity to say, I've had lawyers the entire time, but now I have things I need to get out. In fact, most judges, if a client stood up or defendant stood up, would tell you to sit right back down. Your lawyer speaks, not you.
MATTINGLY: So, why do you think he didn't -- sorry, why do you think he did in this case?
AGANGA-WILLIAMS: Frankly, I think he was giving some level of deference to former President Trump being the former president. I think there have been concerns about so called muzzling the president, impacting his First Amendment rights, the gag orders. I think those concerns are probably influenced the judge's decision here to allow him to potentially speak.
What the judge did was give very reasonable restrictions. Closing arguments are about commenting on the material relevant facts and evidence, applying the law to those facts, and making an argument about how the fact finder here, the judge, should interpret all that together. That's what the judge said the former president had to do.
What he couldn't do was get up there, give a campaign speech attacking the judge, attacking the judge's wife, attacking the law clerk. And I think the fact that not only did the former president not abide by the deadlines but chose not to come, I think, shows you that what the former president wanted to do was a campaign speech and not a closing argument.
HARLOW: No doubt, he'll speak outside the courtroom.
Elie, remind people what's at stake in this case. Some of it's already been decided by this judge, no jury here, but some crucial parts will be decided now.
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, the short answer is the future of the Trump organization. I mean, the entire ability of the Trump Org to continue doing business is what's at stake here.
So, just to set the stage, this is a civil lawsuit brought by the New York state attorney general, Letitia James, against the Trump Organization and various individuals, including Donald Trump. The allegation is that Trump and his organization vastly inflated the values of their properties, their assets, in order to get loans that they maybe wouldn't otherwise have gotten, or perhaps at better interest rates.
Now, important to know, the judge has already found on one of the causes of action, one of the claims here in favor of the attorney general and against Donald Trump. That was something the judge decided before the trial. The judge said, just based on the filings I have before me, I'm ruling in favor of the A.G.
There are still six other causes of action relating to submitting false documents and that kind of thing, and what the attorney general is now asking for is $370 million in what we call discouragement, meaning we're taking away ill gotten gains and most importantly cancelation of the Trump Organization's business certificate, which you need to do, do business in the state. So, when Trump's lawyers, maybe Trump, but I agree, I think probably just his lawyers get up, they're arguing for the future of the business.
HARLOW: Can I ask you, hasn't there been some question on the latter part of what the A.G.'s office is asking for and if they can really go that far as to pull completely the certificates that give you the right to do business here?
HONIG: So, legally, the A.G.'s office can ask for that. Legally, the judge can do that. But there is, I think, a fair question about whether it's overkill. When you look at this case and other similar cases involving fraud, it's hard to find another example where the New York State A.G. has asked for the corporate death penalty on a company like this, in scenarios like this. There's other scenarios where you've had fraud, where victims, innocent victims, were essentially stolen from, and still this wasn't sought. So, there's a legit look.
The Washington Post ran, I think, a compelling editorial a few months ago arguing that the remedy sought here was overkill.
MATTINGLY: In terms of the remedy, when are we going to see -- is this something where the judge, since it's already been kind of one decision made, where he writes something at the end of today, a month, two months, when do we know?
AGANGA-WILLIAMS: I think what he said is potentially by the end of the month. I mean, because the judge is well-steeped in these facts here, I suspect that he's already been drafting his opinion. I mean, he knows what he's going to do here. These closing arguments are going to be in a sense less impactful because the judge is a fact finder. He doesn't need as much of the lawyers to put together the arguments for him the way you would if you had a traditional jury. So, I suspect he's already drafting opinion and we'll see it come out in the next few weeks.
HONIG: And we're going to be deprived of some of the drama that normally comes with this where you don't know when the jury is going to come back. Then they come back, then they stand up and say we find for --
MATTINGLY: Can I just ask real quick, why no jury?
HONIG: Well, the law here would that the remedy that the A.G. is seeking doesn't require a jury.
[07:25:03]
But it's important to remember --
HARLOW: They could have requested it.
HONIG: Trump's team could have asked for it. There's a little bit of gray area there. They did not ask for it. And I think if they had asked for a jury, they would have had a decent chance of getting one.
MATTINGLY: I just always think that's an important point to make on everything. They chose this route.
HONIG: Yes.
MATTINGLY: All right. Elie Honig, Temidayo, thanks, guys. I appreciate it.
HARLOW: Thank you.
After the apology that wasn't to Jimmy Kimmel, Aaron Rodgers will not appear on ESPN for the rest of the NFL season. The details behind this decision, ahead.
MATTINGLY: And Hunter Biden causing quite a stir, making an unannounced visit to Capitol Hill yesterday. Representative Katie Porter was in the room when he showed up unexpectedly. She's going to join us, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARLOW: Well, today, Hunter Biden is expected to appear in a federal courtroom in Los Angeles. He is facing nine counts, including failure to file and pay taxes and filing a false or fraudulent tax return. And this comes after the president's son really sparked chaos, pandemonium, if you will, on Capitol Hill. He made a surprise visit there.
House Republicans were just starting the process of holding him in contempt for not complying with their subpoena to sit for a closed door deposition last month. Well, defied that subpoena, saying he'd only publicly testify. And to put it lightly, Republicans were not pleased.
