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Department of Homeland Security Orders Texas National Guard to Provide Border Patrol Access to Border Areas; Former President Trump Cancels Campaign Events in Iowa Due to Weather; North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum Interviewed on His Endorsement of Donald Trump for President in 2024. Trump Eyes Iowans to Caucus in Cold: You Can't Sit Home; NWS: Life-Threatening Windchills Hit Iowa During Caucus. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired January 15, 2024 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: -- replied to the high court saying that it is going to work to get access to Border Patrol to ramp at that park that I just showed you. But this shows the ramping up of escalation.

And now new scoop this morning from my colleague at the White House, Priscilla Alvarez, about this cease and desist order by DHS to the state of Texas, asking them, and hear this, not just to give Border Patrol access to that park, to the area that you see behind me, and to miles of river, but to actual federal land. And I want to leave you with a statement, because it's very telling in this letter. It says, "Some of the barriers placed by Texas and the armed soldiers deployed by Texas are on federal land, specifically, Texas National Guard is blocking entrances through federally owned and maintained border barriers with armed soldiers."

And Poppy and Phil, the DHS has given Texas until Wednesday to give Border Patrol access. Back to you guys.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Rosa Flores, thank you.

And CNN THIS MORNING continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The first votes of the 2024 presidential election are now just hours away.

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: We want to save America from crooked Joe Biden. You must go caucus tomorrow, the very first step.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: New endorsements, final pitches, and subzero cold.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is 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 fellas are scared. This starts with Iowa.

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

VIVEK RAMASWAMY, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I would 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 VIDEO CLIP)

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. So glad you're with us. Hope you got a lot of rest this weekend, because you're going to be up late tonight. It's a big night, a very big night, the biggest night. I am Poppy Harlow with Phil Mattingly in New York. Kasie Hunt is live in Des Moines, Iowa, and right now we are 12 hours away from the start of the Iowa caucuses. We will find out how dominant a frontrunner Donald Trump is. These are forecast to be the coldest Iowa caucuses ever. Voters will be battling dangerous subzero temps with windchills as low as minus 40 degrees to get out and caucus tonight. Take a live look at Des Moines, Iowa, where the high today is negative one.

MATTINGLY: Trump is holding a virtual tele-rally after canceling several rallies over the weekend because of the frigid weather. These Iowa caucuses could be make or break for Ron DeSantis, and he's keeping his ground game going despite the cold, today crisscrossing the state with several campaign events before the caucuses begin.

We have team coverage this morning with correspondents on the ground in Iowa. Let's start, though, with the aforementioned Kasie Hunt in Des Moines. Kasie, candidates obviously taking the cold very seriously. How are the campaigns adapting in these final hours?

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, we're all just trying to get by. I spent a couple of minutes outside, and with the tips of my fingers exposed and I got to tell you, I think the feeling has been regained in them 10 minutes or 15 minutes after I walked back inside.

And the campaigns just can't do what they normally would be able to do between the blizzard and now this cold that is quite literally dangerous. Iowans, they are not afraid of the cold by any stretch, but this is a particularly different situation. And so they have to adjust their turnout organizations. In particular, the Trump campaign calling precinct captains, asking, hey, does your vehicle have four-wheel drive? Because if so, we need you picking up your neighbors and getting them to the caucus site.

So it's really going to be a significant test of the ground game here, and also enthusiasm, right. You've got to be really excited to go vote, to leave your house when the windchills are down at negative 30 or even negative 40 degrees. That's what it feels like here in Iowa. So it's just pretty wild.

But I've got to tell you, you mentioned at the top that this is a test of just how dominant a frontrunner Donald Trump is. I think that's really the right way to look at it, because the thing that I love the most about covering campaign politics is that voters often surprise you. And if we've made a mistake in the last few election cycles, it is assuming that we know what is going to happen. We have seen assumption after assumption. I think if those had been true, Hillary Clinton would have been president, Donald Trump never would have been the Republican nominee in 2016.

So while it does seem like the writing is on the wall in terms of this Republican nominating contest, you just never know. Those voters might surprise you. and we are finally going to get our first test of that tonight, Poppy, Phil.

[08:05:03]

HARLOW: We are. Kasie, get back to you soon. Thank you.

MATTINGLY: Donald Trump is using his final campaign appearances in Iowa to, well, usually insult against anyone who doesn't support him. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: But these caucuses are your personal chance to score the ultimate victory over all of the liars, cheaters, thugs, perverts, frauds, crooks, freaks, creeps, and other quite nice people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: The former president also repeating the xenophobic language he's used to describe illegal immigrants.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: We're taking in people from prisons. We're taking in people from mental institutions. We're taking in murderers and drug lords. We're taking in people that are very, very sick with diseases that will be spread all over our nation. We're doing the wrong thing for our country. It's going to be very hard to recover from that, but we're going to start on day one with deportation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Joining the former president on stage yesterday was Governor Doug Burgum of North Dakota who had endorsed his one-time rival. Governor Burgum last month ended his own longshot bid for the Republican nomination, and he had a very different message just a few months ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you ever do business with Donald Trump?

GOV. DOUG BURGUM, (R) NORTH DAKOTA: I don't think so.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why?

BURGUM: I just think that it's important that you're judged by the company you keep. And I --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You just wouldn't do business with him?

BURGUM: No, I wouldn't.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Governor Burgum joins us now. Governor, we play all of that mostly because I want to make the point, you campaigned and campaigned both for governor and president in a very different way, tonally and message-wise than the former president. Why get behind him right now?

BURGUM: It's an easy choice. It's a binary choice. President Trump is going to win the Republican nomination. It's not going to be close. He's going to be up against Joe Biden. And as a governor and as a business person, I have had an opportunity to see what it's like under each of those presidents, and I can tell you, in our state, which is an energy state, and ag state, we were much better off under President Trump.

And I know we campaigned on three things -- economy, energy, national security. Those things are all three interrelated. Joe Biden has taken this country in 180 degrees the wrong direction, and I know that under a Trump administration, we're going to be going in the right direction on that. And so it's an easy decision when the choice is between the Republican and the Democrat in this case.

MATTINGLY: Governor, which primary are you watching? Because my understanding is it's not a binary choice. There are actually four or five, maybe even six Republican candidates. In what world is this a binary choice at this point in time with other candidates still in the race?

BURGUM: I think you'll see tonight in Iowa with the commanding finish that President Trump will have today in the Iowa caucuses, and then things might tighten up in New Hampshire, but then you're going to see across the country that we have never seen this kind of a lead before in a primary. And it's going to be a Trump versus Biden unless the Democrats decide they want to switch horses.

But that's what the race is going to be, and the sooner the Republicans get behind that and understand that, the sooner we can get towards getting our country going in the right direction, because Biden's policies on energy are, they're destabilizing the world. They're empowering our foreign dictators, they're helping our enemies, and they're hurting America. And we just have to get going in a different direction.

MATTINGLY: Why do you think you're the first former Republican presidential candidate to endorse the former president in this primary?

BURGUM: Well, I'm a business guy. I'm a data driven person. And I think that it's not just the writing on the wall. These are insurmountable odds in terms of just all the things that pundits would look at, and I think that you're going to see in a few months that all of the candidates that have been running, they are all going to -- virtually all of them will say, hey, I'm going to support the Republican nominee. And so I think I'm the first of many that, I'm sure, that will be supporting the former president in his run against Joe Biden.

MATTINGLY: All things created equal, were there not insurmountable odds, was he not up by 30 or 40 points, do you think he's the best of the remaining candidates in the race?

BURGUM: Well, I think the voters are the ones that get to decide that, and I think that what you're seeing is, in a world that's becoming increasingly unstable, a place where now we've got wars erupting around the world and where you've got powerful dictators, which our policies, whether it's folks in Iran who are funding terrorism, whether it's Putin, whether it's Venezuela, whether it's China, I think Americans are saying, we've got to have someone who's proven that he can stand up to this.

[08:10:03]

I think we've got in President Trump someone who's going to help avoid World War III. This is kind of a Churchill versus Chamberlain. The Biden administration has been practicing appeasement, and we have seen where that's taken us. And I think Americans are concerned about the future. I think that's going to be reflected in what the voters say today in Iowa.

MATTINGLY: Just quickly before I let you go, does this precede an announcement that you're going to run for reelection as governor for North Dakota?

BURGUM: Today I'm here campaigning for President Trump. We'll leave that for North Dakota politics. And we've got great things going in North Dakota. North Dakota's got the highest GDP of any Republican-led state. Our economy is booming. Our population is growing. We were just named the best state to start a business in. A lot of positive things going on in North Dakota. And it was -- when we were campaigning, it was an honor to be able to share that story around the country, a state that like Iowa helps feed and fuel the world. But that decision is coming and not going to be made today.

MATTINGLY: Probably helpful to have the former president's support if you do that. North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, thank you, sir. Appreciate it.

BURGUM: Thank you.

HARLOW: Evangelicals in Iowa rejected Trump eight years ago. This year, he is winning them over. How their support could be key to him clinching the caucuses tonight.

MATTINGLY: And Ron DeSantis joins us live after placing all his chips on Iowa, visiting all 99 counties, knocking on more than a million doors. So how did "we're going to win" turn into "we're going to do well."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RON DESANTIS, (R) FLORIDA: We're going to win Iowa.

We're going to win Iowa.

We're going to win Iowa.

We're going to do well on Monday.

We're going to do well. I like being underestimated.

We're going to do well in Iowa.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:15:16]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The caucus will be filled with a lot of great people. I say if you're single, you'll probably meet your future husband or wife.

You can't sit home. If you're sick as a dog, you say, darling, I've got -- even if vote and then pass away, it's worth it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Very high risk, high reward proposition there. That was President Trump over the weekend urging his supporters to turn out to vote in Iowa, even if it's quite literally the last thing to do.

Now Trump supporters are by far the most enthusiastic to caucus tonight. You can look at the numbers right there and in just a few hours, we're going to see if that enthusiasm will actually translate into votes.

Here is where his base is coming from, and I think it's important to know. As we look at this map right now, it's all gray. We've been talking about polls, we've been talking about projections, we've been talking about ground games, it's about to fill in and that's what actually matters -- when people start to vote.

Now, if you flip back to 2016, you'll remember Ted Cruz actually upset Trump. Trump was bleeding in the polls going into the day, Cruz ended up winning because of a ground operation.

And the large reason why he won was in places like up here in the northwest part of the state, also down here as well. What are these places most known for? These are the more evangelical areas of the state. These are also areas where the education level is a little bit lower. What do we mean by that?

Well, let's take a look at the actual evangelicals. The darker parts of this state, right now, the boxes that you see that are more of a dark brownish color right here, these are the heavier evangelical populations, in the northwest part of the state down here in the south as well.

These were areas that Cruz was able to take significant advantage of peeling off evangelicals from Trump. That has started to shift over the course of the last several years.

You can see it in the polling where Trump is actually leading in polls of evangelicals. So what does that mean for DeSantis? It means he's going to have to hope in places like up here where Ted Cruz not only just beat Trump, he dominated Trump in the northwest part of the state, can he actually have an impact there to hold on to votes like that? The bigger issue, of course, as well is not just where evangelicals are, but also in the other rural parts of the state. Those don't have college degrees. This has always been Trump's base -- White, rural, less educated.

Can DeSantis peel off any of those votes as well? It is an open question right now, but there is no question at all, Donald Trump heading into this race with a major advance in the polling, both writ large, but also with certain subgroups like evangelicals -- Poppy.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, we'll see if he can even beat those numbers tonight. Phil, thank you very much.

And evangelicals in Iowa shunned Trump eight years ago, but the latest polling shows they are embracing him, this time around, 51 percent of evangelical caucus goers plan to vote for the former president, Ron DeSantis has about 22 percent of them.

In 2016 for some context here, evangelicals made up two-thirds of Republican caucus goers. That's when Ted Cruz beat Trump to win the state and on the heels of this poll, "The New York Times" asked several pastors which way they were leaning and why.

We are joined by two pastors now, Pastor Travis Decker, who is a pastor at a Ottumwa Baptist Temple in Ottumwa, Iowa. He supports Donald Trump. We're also joined by Dr. Tim Lubinus, he is the Executive Director of the Baptist Convention of Iowa and he supports Ron DeSantis.

Gentlemen, I so appreciate you joining us this morning for this important conversation. And Dr. Lubinus, let me just begin with you.

How does your faith inform your support for Ron DeSantis? And why is it him over the former president?

DR. TIM LUBINUS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BAPTIST CONVENTION OF IOWA, SUPPORTS RON DESANTIS: Well, like everyone, our faith informs any of our decisions and my faith is the Christian faith, and so the object of the faith is Jesus. And I'm informed by studying the Bible and community, our community of other believers. And my faith looks for somebody who is somebody of integrity, who is principled, and who's a proven leader and that is the description of Ron DeSantis.

And he's also a lot more presidential than the other candidates. He's a governor who is disciplined and has shown himself to be the kind of person that we can follow.

HARLOW: Pastor Decker, what is your response to Dr. Lubinus and why you support Trump?

PASTOR TRAVIS DECKER, OTTUMWA BAPTIST TEMPLE: Okay, so, you know, first of all, I want to make sure that everyone knows Jesus is the savior, righteousness exalted the nation. And we're not voting for a pastor or a Sunday school teacher. I have often said, none of these candidates could be a Sunday school teacher in my church, so they're not on the same page and I don't hold any of them as a specific role model for our family or our congregation.

And none of them meet that bar to me, biblically, and I appreciate our brother here and I appreciate you and the thing I love about America is that we all get a free option to speak and have an opinion and we don't have to hate each other to disagree a little bit with each other. So President Trump --

HARLOW: So --

DECKER: Go ahead.

HARLOW: Well, Pastor Decker --

DECKER: President Trump --

HARLOW: It sounds like you disagree with for example, Chris Christie, who dropped out of the race last week saying character is the single most important trait for the presidency.

DECKER: Sure, is one to speak, you know? I mean, it's -- character is an assessment that we all have to make about the candidate for ourselves. I like this fact about President Trump.

From Ronald Reagan on, I saw some statistics that showed each president went into the office and came out significantly wealthier than they went in.

President Trump went into the office and came out with less money than he went in. He also gave his paycheck away to charity every single time that he was in there. So I know that there's some rhetoric that he has on television. I

think that he tries to get people's vote and I don't like a lot of the language that he uses, for sure. But down deep inside, I think he loves America. I think he loves our country and wants the very best for our country.

HARLOW: Okay, I'm not going to dissect Trump's finances right now. There was just a report out from Congress couple of weeks ago that showed multiple ways in which he benefited, profited during his time in office.

But to the core issues here, gentlemen, let's speak about abortion if we could. This is what Trump said at a Fox News townhall just last week on abortion restrictions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Now, I happen to be for the exceptions, like Ronald Reagan, with the life of the mother, rape, incest.

If you talk five or six weeks, a lot of women don't know if they're pregnant in five or six weeks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: I'm wondering to both of you let me begin with you, Pastor Decker, do you think when you hear that, do you think Trump is pro- life?

DECKER: President Trump, you know, despite what he said there, President Trump has done more to protect life than probably any other president that we've ever had with the appointing of the judges that ultimately overturned Roe versus Wade.

I believe that if Congress enacted a law that had a federal ban, I believe Trump would sign it without question. I don't think that, that that's going to happen, and so for a candidate to say I'm going to do something they can't do without Congress, you have to be careful about making promises about that.

HARLOW: Dr. Lubinus, I should note Trump also called Ron DeSantis' six-week abortion ban at one point "a terrible thing and a terrible mistake." Is DeSantis' six-week ban in Florida part of the reason, a big part of why you're supporting him?

LUBINUS: Yes, he has a strong pro-life stance and he is moving the needle forward in Florida and I hope representing the pro-life community as president. And so yes, that's one of the reasons that I would support him.

I'd be concerned about some of the other candidates, including President Trump, who are inconsistent that he'll say one thing one time and then another thing another time, and it's that consistency and discipline and principled-ness that DeSantis has that leans me toward voting for him tonight. HARLOW: Before we go, I'd like both of your takes quickly if we could

on something Trump posted on his social media site. This is made by a fan of his and it has been criticized by some for having messianic overtones. Here's part of it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: God looked down on his planned paradise and said, I need a caretaker, so God gave us Trump. God said, I need --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Pastor Decker, your response to that? Does it concern you at all?

DECKER: Again, he didn't create it. I don't think that he thinks that. He posts lots of things and I think he does it to troll people, honestly. You get down inside, he has very clearly stated behind the scenes that he is the -- you know, he has the fear of God, and once -- you know he's not there yet, as far as I'm concerned, I would love to see him become -- and grow more of a conscience in a lot of areas, but I think he has a proven track record of being a good president, and especially on abortion.

HARLOW: And quickly Dr. Lubinus, for you, any concerns about idolatry?

LUBINUS: Yes, and it's not so much about what President Trump does, it is the people who follow him.

Yes, there are some that are way over the top that almost anything he would do and of course he even said anything he would do, people would still support him. That's concerning to me and it is getting close to the definition of idolatry.

HARLOW: I really appreciate this conversation to both of you. I know you're probably going to get out and caucus tonight. Bundle up and thank you very much for your time.

DECKER: Thank you.

LUBINUS: Thank you.

HARLOW: Thank you.

MATTINGLY: Well, today marks 100 days since the deadly October 7th terror attacks in Israel and Hamas releasing an ominous message about some of the hostages still in Gaza.

[08:20:05]

HARLOW: Also the state of voting rights in America on this Martin Luther King, Jr. Day where laws are getting more restrictive six decades after Dr. King delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: All right,

a live look at the skyline. Look the sun is coming up here in Des Moines, Iowa.

Iowans this morning being met with brutal cold ahead of the caucus, which starts in less than 12 hours. I just ventured outside to Mars Cafe here in Des Moines to show you exactly how cold it is. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Okay, so here's some water. Here's a window. Let's see what happens. One more time, ready?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So it froze immediately. I obviously raced in back inside as soon as possible. My apologies to the Mars Cafe. They went out to try to clean up the ice off the window, the cleaning solution, it is so cold that even the chemicals are freezing on the windows.

Joining me now though, to talk more about all this and what it means for the caucus, "New York Times" national political correspondent Lisa Lerer, and Kathie Obradovich. She is editor-in-chief for the "Iowa Capital Dispatch."

So grateful to have both of you here. Kathie, this is by far the coldest caucus I've ever covered. I know if it is the coldest when you've lived through.

KATHIE OBRADOVICH, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, "IOWA CAPITAL DISPATCH": Coldest one in history. Yes.

HUNT: Yes, it's just really remarkable and I know you've been kind of digging into the numbers and thinking through kind of what this means and I'm really curious especially on the enthusiasm question, right? I mean, we can put up and show people in this latest poll, 88 percent of Donald Trump supporters say that they were mildly or significantly enthusiastic about getting out to caucus. That number drops quickly, 62 percent for DeSantis, 39 percent for Haley. You can see it there.

What does this tell you about what this cold is going to have in terms of an impact?

[08:30:34]