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Trump Has Dominant Lead as Iowa Faces Coldest Caucus on Record; Desperation Grips Hostage Families in Israel. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired January 15, 2024 - 06:00   ET

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

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS: But the game I can't wait to see is that one on top. Seventeen inches of snow in Orchard Park over the weekend, but New York Governor Kathy Hochul says that yesterday, those Bills and Steelers will play today after yesterday's postponement.

[06:00:16]

And here was their field over the weekend. I mean, it looks like Lake Erie, snow-effect snow -- snow effect -- lake-effect snow there.

And now, check out this Bills offensive lineman, Alec Anderson, if we could show that video really quickly, helping to pull someone out of the -- stranded along the side of the road yesterday. That's what it's all about. If you play the Bills, you play a whole city. And it will be tight today.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Lake-effect snow not holding anyone back. I love that video at the end, by the way. Thank you very much, Coy. We'll talk to you in a little bit.

The next hour of CNN starts now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): The first votes of the 2024 election are now just hours away.

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Do you want to save America from Crooked Joe Biden? You must go caucus tomorrow, the very first step.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): New endorsements, final pitches and sub-zero cold.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's on track to be the coldest caucus night in history.

TRUMP: You can't sit home. Even if you vote and then pass away, it's worth it.

NIKKI HALEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We can do this. The fellows are scared. This starts with Iowa.

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I like being underestimated. I like being the underdog. I think that that's better.

VIVEK RAMASWAMY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'd rather speak the truth and lose this election than to win by playing some fake game of political Snakes and Ladders.

DESANTIS: He's running a campaign about putting himself and his issues first. You deserve a nominee that's going to put you first, not himself first.

HALEY: If you will join with us and caucus, I promise you, our best days are yet to come.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: Good Monday morning, everyone. So glad you're with us. I'm Poppy Harlow with Phil Mattingly in New York. Kasie Hunt is live in Des Moines, Iowa.

And it's today, finally. The Iowa caucuses are here. We're about to find out if the polls were right. Can Donald Trump dominate, or can his rivals pull off a huge upset and at least change the dynamics of this race?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: These are set to be the coldest Iowa caucuses ever on record, with dangerously frigid temperatures. This is a live look at Des Moines, where you probably don't want to be outside.

The high right now today, negative 1. Wind chills could drop to minus 40. That's so cold, you can get frostbite in just ten minutes.

So in their closing messages, Trump and his opponents made a big push for their supporters to get out and caucus despite that Arctice blast.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: You can't sit home. If you're sick as a dog, you say, I've got to make it. Even if you vote and then pass away, it's worth it.

DESANTIS: Here in Iowa, you have the ability to change the trajectory of American politics.

HALEY: If you will join with us and caucus, if you will bring friends and family with you when you do it, I promise you, our best days are yet to come.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: We have team coverage this morning. Correspondents on the ground in Iowa. Our political analysts standing by.

Let's start with Kasie Hunt. She joins us in Des Moines.

Good morning to you, again, Kasie. The candidates are taking the cold very seriously. How are they changing their tactics? I mean, a lot of what was supposed to be in person over the weekend all of a sudden became virtual.

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: Right. I mean, it had to. You know, I have to say I've done this enough times. I'm not very good at the cold. So everyone is always making fun of me for thinking it's too cold. No one is making fun of anybody right now, because this cold is so very serious. There are real potential -- I mean, health ramifications if you spend too much time outside without the proper protection.

And for the campaigns, that's meant holding tele town halls. That's what some of them have done. They've also had to kind of adjust their turnout operations to try to think through, especially for the Trump team, where a lot of their support is out in rural Iowa. That means making calls to people who have four-by-four vehicles that can quite literally drive around and pick people up to take them to caucus sites.

Because especially out in, you know, I know you guys have been on the campaign trail. If you go out to, like, Western Iowa, a lot of the roads are gravel. Those gravel roads are not plowed yet. There's a lot of people, you know, basically stuck. So that's really something that they've -- they're going to have to think about.

And it could, potentially -- One thing I keep hearing is this question about, OK, Nikki Haley supporters might not be as enthusiastic, according to these recent polls. But a lot of live in suburbs. The roads are plowed. A lot of them drive large SUVs, because they're some of the more affluent areas in Iowa.

Those are cars that can get them around more safely. So that may have an impact, as well.

MATTINGLY: Kasie, does it feel like a one-person race on the ground? Or does it feel like there's a possibility for a surprise like we've seen in the past, because we have not seen this wide of a spread in the polling in the past.

[06:05:06]

HUNT: Right. I mean, Donald Trump is just so dominant here that there is less of that sense of suspense that usually hangs over something, any one of these caucuses.

So the Trump team is camped out at Hotel Fort Des Moines. Interestingly, it was the Hillary Clinton campaign during one of her rounds of Iowa caucuses that I covered that was camped out at the Hotel Fort Des Moines. This time it's Trump's team.

And that's where all of the action is. Right?

It's also at the 801 Steak House, which is kind of the traditional places during the Republican caucuses that you run into -- you run into people. Senator Joni Ernst, for example, of Iowa was there last night.

And while there is the general sense of excitement, you know, events like this are a lot of fun, especially for political reporters like me. It's just -- it's very different than when there were these real big questions about who was going to win.

And that, you know, I think, really sort of underscores the hill that Ron DeSantis has to climb.

And, you know, for more on this, let's bring in CNN's Alayna Treene. She's also here in Des Moines at a different site.

Now, Alayna, I know you cover the Trump campaign day in and day out. I mean, what have you been hearing from them about how they're approaching these final days, and how his caucus goers, many of them potentially first-time caucus goers, are reacting to the circumstances?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right, well, that is the big question heading into today. I know from my conversations with Donald Trump's team and his advisers that they had been growing increasingly concerned in recent days about potential turnout here during the caucuses today.

And that's in part due to the dangerously frigid conditions that we're seeing across the state. But it's also in part due because he has such a commanding lead in the polls.

We've seen Donald Trump repeatedly, not just this weekend but over the past several weeks now, really urge his supporters not to get complacent ahead of the caucuses, and really, even last night, he told them, he warned them, really, to not fall for dirty tricks and has been trying to give them information on how and where and when to caucus, really ramping up that rhetoric as we came into today.

And look, I think that his team recognizes that they think he'll win by a large margin. They keep telling me that. That they anticipate he will win and have a big victory.

But the question is by how much? And that's really what they're looking at heading into the caucuses today. The question really is do we need to lower expectations.

And I know in the past week, they've been working to try and lower expectations, not only with the media and the general public but also with the former president himself.

They're saying, you know, it might not be as big of a lead as the polls are showing and trying to deal with that a bit as we head into tonight.

HUNT: Managing Donald Trump's expectations is a whole game, in and of itself. It's smart, though, because you know, I think to kind of underscore your point, if in fact, there were to be some sort of surprise where Trump was down in the low 40s or, God forbid, the high 30s from their perspective, it would be a huge surprise that could really rattle the race.

Alayna Treene, thank you very much.

Poppy, back to you. HARLOW: Kasie, thank you. Get back to you in a minute.

The freezing temperatures, the snow in Iowa could make conditions pretty dangerous for many voters heading to caucus tonight. It has not, for the most part, kept the candidates from the campaign trail as they try to capitalize, though, on voter enthusiasm to drive turnout.

Phil is back at the Magic Wall. Who's best positioned here? Because the weather actually plays a big part in who could get a little -- maybe even a boost from it.

MATTINGLY: Organization matters in caucuses. Right? You talk about polling. Clearly, Donald Trump has a huge lead. You talk about enthusiasm, Donald Trump has a huge lead there, too. But organization matters.

And if you want to know why, look, this is the map right now. It is not filled in yet. We're going to see that start to fill in when we start to actually count votes, thankfully, over the course of the hours ahead.

But go back into 2016. You want to know if organization matters? Donald Trump is leading the polls here, too. Not by as wide a margin as he is currently.

But Ted Cruz, who went to all 99 counties, who had precinct captains throughout the 1,600-plus precincts, who was ready and operational throughout the course of months leading up to that race, Ted Cruz won, narrowly.

Who's doing that this time around? Donald Trump very clearly has a much better operation than he had in 2016, but it's Ron DeSantis who's following the Cruz model: has been to all 99 counties; has knocked on hundreds of thousands, his team says millions of doors; has been getting tens of thousands of caucus commitment cards, trying to say that he is the one who can pull an upset here, going all in on Iowa. And in fact, his deputy campaign manager says the weather should help them because of that. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID POLYANSKY, DESANTIS DEPUTY CAMPAIGN MANAGER: We knew it was going to be a cold night regardless of the temperature, probably not this cold. But we knew it would be cold, and we knew it was important to have volunteers, fellow Iowans, in place across every one of the 721 Iowa caucus locations to be prepared to not just speak on Governor DeSantis's behalf but help organize their neighbors and make sure they show up that night. That's an advantage that no other campaign in this race has.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[06:10:09]

MATTINGLY: So Poppy, as Donald Trump tries to shifts the game a little bit, particularly in the Northwest corner, where evangelicals were a stronghold for Ted Cruz back in 2016. And I think the interesting thing last night was a note from our embed, Kate Sullivan, who said Trump will be calling over the course of the next couple days, all of his caucus captains. Not just campaigning, making personal phone calls. They know organization matters in Iowa.

HARLOW: And they've got such an improved organization on the ground in Iowa this time around. What about, though, his legal calendar, and all of these trials that he is facing? And the ones he chose to attend? How has that affected their ground game in Iowa?

MATTINGLY: It's fascinating, because this is a much more professional operation. Everybody who's talked about it. We were just talking to Alex (ph), who was making the point earlier that this is a different operation than they had in 2016. It's a more professional operation.

But if you want to look at the campaign stops in Iowa over the course, since January of 2023. Donald Trump, by far and away, has the fewest at 25. You look at Ron DeSantis, 137.

We're talking about his operation. Vivek Ramaswamy, 310 all over the place in the state. Whether or not that will take hold is the big question going forward.

The thing I want to watch over the course of the night, watch these counties up here. And I'm fascinated by Sioux County. Because if you look at what happened back in 2016, Ted Cruz won this, as he did much of the Northwest Evangelical strongholds.

But Donald Trump got smoked. Donald Trump came in fourth place in this country. If he starts to turn things around in this type of area, these types of counties in the Northwest, even making it close with Ron DeSantis or actually winning those counties is a blow-out kind of night for Donald Trump. Watch that amongst all the other things we're watching over the course of the coming hours.

HARLOW: Good point. Like your zoom-in ability there.

MATTINGLY: Like that? Getting there.

HARLOW: Nice, nice.

For Donald Trump, the key to victory could be convincing voters who were skeptical of him last time around. How Trump is expanding beyond his blue-collar base, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:15:40]

HUNT: Welcome back. I'm Kasie Hunt in Des Moines. It is caucus day here in Iowa. And with the final polling in, it's becoming a little clearer, entirely clear almost, just who is making up the candidates' voter bases.

Among the highlights, former President Donald Trump firming up support with the state's influential evangelicals and college-educated conservatives.

Nikki Haley bringing in support from independents and crossover Democrats.

Let's bring in now Ron Brownstein, CNN senior political analyst, and senior editor at "the Atlantic."

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning.

HUNT: Thrilled to be here with you.

BROWNSTEIN: Dawn's early light in Iowa.

HUNT: We're still working on the coffee.

BROWNSTEIN: Ninth -- ninth caucus for me.

HUNT: The ninth caucus?

BROWNSTEIN: Ninth caucus.

HUNT: So is this one the most exciting, the least exciting? There's not a lot of suspense.

BROWNSTEIN: No. And there's not only not a lot of suspense, there isn't really the kind of engagement we've seen among the candidates in the past. I mean, we have asymmetrical warfare.

Trump is out there pounding DeSantis and Haley, not only at his appearances but on television. I think he's spent over $30 million on negative ads against the two of them. Meanwhile, they spent 38 million, I believe, on negative ads against each other, only about 1 million on Trump. DeSantis has --

HUNT: Says it all, right?

BROWNSTEIN: DeSantis has developed an argument in the final stages. But it's a very idiosyncratic one, aimed at a pretty narrow slice of voters.

I mean, basically, he is saying that Donald Trump can no longer be trusted to deliver the "America first" agenda. Right? I mean, he attacks him for not deporting enough undocumented immigrants, for not finishing the wall. He's not -- No longer reliable on abortion.

I mean, that -- that positioning, I think he's going to see the limits of that tonight. I mean, people talk about his execution, and that has gotten better.

But the conception of the candidacy left him, I think, with a very narrow space. And then you have Haley, who has -- you know, you've got to give her credit, she has out maneuvered all of the guys --

HUNT: Yes, it's incredible.

BROWNSTEIN: -- to likely be the last one standing as a viable alternative to Trump. But she, too, has been extraordinarily cautious about making an argument against him.

I saw in her yesterday in Ames. And, you know, as she does in her stump speech, she said, The hard truths that Republicans have to face is that Donald Trump was the right president for the time. I agree with most of his policy, but chaos follows him, rightly or wrongly.

If those are the hard truths, I mean, what does ducking -- you know, what does ducking the truth sound like? And so, you know, ultimately, look, there's a case to be made. She needs to focus on squeezing out DeSantis first.

Iowa is pretty conservative terrain. But she -- I think the lesson we're going to get tonight, is that she also needs a stronger argument to reach beyond her base of the voters, who start with an inclination not to vote for Trump.

And she needs to find a way. She needs to engage with him, I think, in a way that allows her to appeal to what Whit Ayers -- you know, our friend Whit Ayers calls the maybe Trump voters who are basically sympathetic to him but possibly open to an alternative.

HUNT: Right. So those -- those maybe Trump voters. I mean, you -- There's a piece in "The New York Times" about conservative college- educated voters.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes, yes.

HUNT: And it does seem, like if you look at the polling from a year ago, they were very open to somebody else. The polling now shows that they are much less -- I mean, they are much more interested in Donald Trump. What is going on here?

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. It was a good piece, but I would just offer a couple of thoughts of context.

You know, in the competitive part of the Republican primary in 2016, Donald Trump got about 40 percent of the total vote. He's polling about 60 percent of the total vote now.

He's gone up with everybody. He's definitely improved with college- educated Republican voters, and also improved with noncollege Republican voters and with evangelical voters.

In fact, our friends at 538.com, they keep a kind of average of the cross tabs of all the major polls. His vote is up about 50 percent among both college and non-college Republicans since 2016.

So I think he does have a broader base within the party, but it is still true that if Haley, I think, who is the most likely alternative, is able to build any kind of real momentum against Trump, it's going to start with those college voters.

You're going to see it in the suburbs of Des Moines tonight and, obviously, Southern New Hampshire. That will have to be. It's not enough for her to win. She's got to go beyond it.

HUNT: Right.

BROWNSTEIN: But that is the first place that she can make gains.

HUNT: Very briefly, Ron, if Ron DeSantis comes in third in Iowa, and looks back at his campaign, what will have been his biggest mistake?

[06:20:04]

BROWNSTEIN: I think it was the failure of conception, not execution. I mean, he believed that there was this constituency that he could peel away by arguing Donald Trump is not sufficiently conservative.

The analogy I use is that Trump is this Mack truck, rolling down the far-right lane of American politics. He's left all this room in the center of the party. And here's Ron DeSantis trying to squeeze past him on the shoulder, on the right, you know, in those -- in those six inches. Conception as much as execution.

HUNT: All right. Ron Brownstein, thank you so much. Hope to continue this conversation in New Hampshire.

BROWNSTEIN: Good to be with you.

HUNT: And beyond -- Poppy.

HARLOW: Nothing better than you and Ron Brownstein in a Des Moines cafe on a chilly morning. Seriously, I live for that. Kasie, we'll get back to you very soon. Thank you.

Also following other news this morning, and we want to highlight that it has been 100 days in captivity. Israeli families growing increasingly desperate, demanding Hamas release their loved ones. We have the latest on the fate of more than 100 hostages still being held.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: U.S. Central Command says it has shot down an antiship cruise missile filed from the Houthi-controlled region of Yemen.

[06:25:06]

Officials say a U.S. fighter jet shot down the missile. It was aimed at the USS Laboon Southern region of the Red Sea. So far, no injuries or damage reported.

The Biden administration says it expects that the Iran-backed militant group will likely respond to those strikes carried out by the U.S. and the U.K. last week after repeated Houthi attacks on commercial ships in the area.

MATTINGLY: And new overnight, Hamas released a video on Sunday showing three Israeli hostages in captivity in Gaza. CNN cannot verify when or where the clips were filmed.

But the tape shows Noa Argaman, Yossi Sharabi, and Itai Svirsky, each saying their name, age, and place of residence while looking directly at the camera. "Tomorrow inform you of their fate" was written on the footage, as well.

Now, the video comes as hostage families in Israel are growing more desperate by the hour. It has been 100 days since their loved ones were taken by Hamas. Militants in the bloody October 7th massacre.

In that time, Gaza has been devastated by Israeli Defense Forces, and calls for a ceasefire are growing louder here in the United States.

Nic Robertson is live for us in Tel Aviv.

Nic, 100 days. It's unfathomable for a loved one or a family missing a loved one. Is there any update on whether or not a new hostage exchange deal could be reached?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: There isn't. There are ongoing negotiations. Everyone involved is saying they're not giving up. That there isn't light at the moment in that direction.

We've heard from the U.N. over the weekend marking 100 days. A top U.N. humanitarian envoy wrote to the U.N. secretary-general a scathing account of the situation in Gaza for the people living there.

He talked about bodies being seen at the side of the road by U.N. workers, people in the North of Gaza, close to starvation. He said that the South of Gaza was a real potential flashpoint, when -- if there's a ground offensive there. More than a million people could make a rush for the border.

Protests, as you say, in Washington, D.C., in support of Palestinians calling for a ceasefire. Similar protests in London. Police there at least say they arrested six people from that protest who were planning to disrupt the London Stock Exchange.

But the big, really big crowds gathered here in Tel Aviv over the weekend. It was a 24-hour gathering to mark the missing hostages. A Hundred Days of Hell it was titled. There was music. There were speeches being given, but the real passionate pleas to the government here to get the hostages back. This is something we heard from families of those hostages.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZIV BRASLAVSKI, BROTHER OF ISRAELI HOSTAGE ROM BRASLAVSKI: We hope we come back. We wish he came back. Every day, every night, every hour, every minute that passed, it's harder.

MEIRAV LESHEM GONEN, MOTHER OF ISRAEL HOSTAGE ROMI GONEN: This was crime against humanity. Not crimes against Israel. I want to say to the leaders of the world, this is your responsibility, too, to make sure that they're coming back home, all 136 people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTSON: But to that video of the three hostages released by Hamas on Sunday, typically when they've released videos like this in the past, the government here has called it a psychological warfare, an attempt to undermine the psychology of people here.

Hamas saying today now that they will give more information about these three. Of course, the concern is when Hamas has done this in the past, they've announced that these hostages they're talking about are dead.

But here it could be something else. Psychological torture for those families.

MATTINGLY: Yes. No question about that. Nic Robertson, thank you.

HARLOW: The numbers that really matter at the Iowa caucuses are the votes tallied, right, at the end of the night. But there are also a few other numbers that help tell the story of where the candidates stand.

How the frigid cold temperatures could affect voter turnout. Iowa by the numbers, next.

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