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CNN This Morning

Wind Chill Alerts from Border to Border; Hamas Releases Hostage Videos; Chris Ager is Interviewed about the New Hampshire Primary. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired January 16, 2024 - 06:30   ET

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

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[06:31:41]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: From New York to Baltimore, live pictures right now of snow falling up and down the eastern seaboard. Some cities will see about an inch or more of snow today for the first time in almost two years for here in New York. Even some southern states getting hit with arctic air and snow. More than 120 million people are feeling those bitterly cold temperatures across the country this morning. The windchill in some places could be 45 degrees below zero.

Meteorologist Allison Chinchar joins us now.

It is balmy compared to that here in New York, but a beautiful snowy morning that I woke up to.

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: That's right. And I will say, as far as the temperatures are concerned, we will get a brief reprieve, but the emphasis is on brief from those temperatures.

Now, we can take a look again. You've still got that arctic air surging across the central portion of the U.S. We've also got that cold front that, yes, is bringing areas of snow to the mid-Atlantic and to the northeast. But as far as the temperatures are concerned, we start to see it retreat on Wednesday. So, tomorrow, a lot of folks really starting to see those temperatures get a little bit warmer, but it's going to be brief because by the time we get back to the weekend, another round of arctic air really begins to spread into pretty much everyone for the eastern half of the country. So, again, enjoy that brief reprieve tomorrow.

In the short-term, however, we're still focused on all of the snow that's falling across portions of the mid-Atlantic and the northeast. You still have winter weather alerts stretching from Louisiana all the way up into Maine. And the southern focus there is the concern for some ice. But up north, the main concern here is just snow. You've got it falling across places like New York, Boston, Hartford, even around Providence, Rhode Island.

Again, here's a look at the forecast, though. You can see most of that line really begins to push back out once we get later on this evening. So, folks starting to dry out once we get through the last portion of the afternoon commute later on today into northeast.

The real question is, how much snow does New York end up with. If we can end up getting at least an inch of that, it will break our streak. We're currently sitting at 701 days without an inch of snow in New York. They are likely to break that streak. Some other cities already have, including Philadelphia. So far they've picked up about an inch and a half. Their streak was 715 days. Washington, D.C., had gone all the way up to 728 days. So far they've picked up about 1.8 so far up to this point.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Allison Chinchar, thank you.

HARLOW: Well, Hamas releasing video of three hostages, and Israel now accusing the terror organization of psychological torture. What we know about the hostages straight ahead.

MATTINGLY: And this just in, the U.S. blasting Iran for its missile strikes in Iraq and Syria. The Iranians say they were targeting an Israeli spy base. We're going to have new details ahead.

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[06:38:23]

MATTINGLY: New video you're watching right now just into CNN after Iran's recent missile strikes in northern Iraq. Iran's Revolutionary Guard says they targeted and destroyed a site that was a spy base for Israel's intelligence agency Mossad. Kurdish officials say at least four people are dead in the city of Erbil following those strikes. Iran also fired missiles at what it's calling terror groups in northern Syria, saying they were involved in the grave-side bombings of military commander Qassem Soleimani. Those bombings left dozens dead. The U.S. is condemning Iran's strikes, calling them, quote, "reckless and imprecise," and undermining stability in the region.

HARLOW: Israel, this morning, is accusing Hamas of carrying out psychological torture after the terrorist group release a series of videos showing three hostages that they are still holding in Gaza. The video, the last video, appears to show two of the hostages dead. CNN is not airing or publishing these Hamas videos.

You are looking at images of the two hostages, Noa Argamani and Itai Svirsky from -- these images are from before the October 7th attack. This morning, the Israel defense forces identified the third hostage as Yossi Sharabi.

Our Jeremy Diamond joins us live in Tel Aviv.

They had put out that video and said, you will find out their fate, you know, the following day. And now this development. What more are we hearing from Israel after Hamas has released this latest video?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHIE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the Israeli military is saying that this is psychological torture, the weaponization of social media, and the latest evidence that Hamas, they say, is grasping at straws as it is suffering losses insides the Gaza Strip.

But what is clear is that Hamas has not deployed this kind of tactic before.

[06:40:04]

They released two videos that were essentially teasing out what may have happened to these hostages, really asking the Israeli public, are they alive, are they dead, have they been injured, before ultimately releasing a video in which one of the hostages, Noa Argamani, a 26- year-old, claims that the Israeli military strikes resulted in the deaths of two of these other hostages, Itai Svirsky and 53-year-old Yossi Sharabi. The Israeli military, for its part, says that it was not responsible for their deaths, and, in fact, they are not even confirming that these two hostages, who do appear in this video at the end of the video appearing to show their dead bodies, the Israeli military simply saying that they have grave concerns for their fate.

But obviously, this is torment regardless of how you look at it for the families of these hostages, and who are now wondering about the fate of their loved ones.

MATTINGLY: Jeremy, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that the intensive phase of the IDF's fighting in northern Gaza has come to an end and soon will be over in the Khan Yunis area. How significant is this? Does this mean something specific about what's next here?

DIAMOND: Well, it's really significant because, obviously, this doesn't come in a vacuum. As you know, Phil, the U.S. government has been pressuring Israel to transition to a lower intensity phase of fighting out of concern for civilian life in the Gaza Strip and growing international pressure on the Israeli government. And now for about a week or so we've been hearing from some Israeli military officials that there has been this transition underway to a lower intensity phase of operations.

But Yoav Gallant, the country's defense minister, is the senior most official so far to actually confirm that that change is actually happening on the ground. And he's also articulating it in the clearest terms possible. He says that Israel has concluded its intensive ground operations in northern Gaza and also significantly saying that he believes that that change, that transition will also soon happen in southern Gaza in the Khan Yunis area, the second largest city in the Gaza Strip. He says that Israeli forces are now focused on crushing what he calls pockets of resistance in northern Gaza.

But at the same time, we are also seeing evidence on the ground of this transition in Israeli ground operations. An entire division of troops, thousands of Israeli soldiers, overnight withdrawing from key areas in northern and central Gaza as well. The clearest indication yet that Israel is actually following through on what the United States has been pressuring it to do for weeks now.

Now, the question of course is, what will happen after that? Because as Israeli officials have repeatedly told me, even though they can ramp down the intensity of operations, that also means that they can ramp it back up as necessary. And we know that in southern Gaza, they are certainly still trying to go after and capture or kill Hamas leaders who they believe are hidden underground.

Phil. Poppy.

HARLOW: Jeremy Diamond, so appreciate your reporting in Tel Aviv for us this morning.

MATTINGLY: Well, today, the Republican presidential race headed to New Hampshire. We're going to speak to the chair of the state's Republican Party about what he expects to see exactly one week from today.

HARLOW: Also, how the Biden team is framing Trump's big win in Iowa. What it could tell us about the general election. That's ahead.

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[06:47:32]

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NIKKI HALEY (R), 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: As we head to New Hampshire, I have one more thing to say, underestimate me because that's always fun. I love you, Iowa, but we're on to New Hampshire!

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KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: Nikki Haley framing her third place Iowa finish as more evidence of her momentum heading into the New Hampshire primary. And she's wasting no time hitting the ground here. Today she is set to hold a rally with one of her top surrogates, if not her top surrogate here, the state's governor, Chris Sununu. And unlike Iowa, the polling here suggests Haley might not have a shot just at second place but potentially beating Trump one week from today.

Joining us now is Chris Ager. He is the chair of the New Hampshire Republican Party.

Chris, good morning. Thanks for being here.

CHRIS AGER, CHAIR, NEW HAMPSHIRE REPUBLICAN PARTY: Hey. Thank you.

HUNT: So, what is different about New Hampshire that someone like Nikki Haley has a shot to win, and do you think that still holds after Trump pushed 50 percent, was over 50 percent in Iowa?

AGER: Sure. So, New Hampshire voters break late, and so we don't know from the polling what's going to happen next week. And it -- the only poll that matters is next Tuesday.

So, Nikki Haley does have a very good chance to win here. It's absolutely possible she could win here. Governor DeSantis could also do very well here. We just have a very independent minded electorate, and they're not going to look at what happened in Iowa and make a decision based on that. They're going to make it based on how they feel about the candidates. HUNT: What is it about the Republicans here that means Trump is having

more trouble getting over 50 percent? Because we've seen him dominate nationally. What's different about New Hampshire?

AGER: Yes. So, I think in New Hampshire people pay attention earlier than a lot of other states because we do have the first primary. And we have a very high turnout. So, a very well-educated electorate. And we get to see all the candidates. We get to see Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis. And all of them are great Republicans. And so it's really no surprise that the electorate's split because they're all very good candidates. And the number one goal is to beat Joe Biden. And I think that's weighing heavily on people as well.

HUNT: Chris, one of the features of the New Hampshire primary, I personally love it. I think there are some Republicans who think it's a bug. But undeclared voters get to decide to be a Republican for a day if they want to and vote in the primary. How much of a factor, especially if Nikki Haley does very well, will she owe independent voters and perhaps Democrats her win here if that happens?

AGER: Yes, so unlike Iowa, Democrats can't vote in a Republican primary.

[06:50:04]

Only Republicans or undeclared voters. Undeclared voters are about 40 percent of our electorate. So, it's the plurality. And whoever wins here, you really have to appeal to a broad spectrum of people and Republicans. So, you've got to appeal to both moderate and conservative Republicans. And that bodes well for a general election because you're more palatable to the entire electorate.

So, I think it's good for us. It's good for the party. And the Democrats are drawing their people to vote in their primary also because Joe Biden has a write-in against Dean Phillips. And so, you know, all the Democrats aren't just going to flock to the Republican primary. They're not. They're going to vote in their primary because they - they could embarrass President Biden by him losing here.

HUNT: I know certainly I've spoken to some people who are a little nervous about how the Nikki Haley effect could impact the write-in campaign for Biden that you mentioned.

One of the themes, obviously, of Donald Trump's -- frankly the years since he's left office has been the idea of a rigged election. And he suggested before Iowa voted that perhaps things might not be right, something might be amiss. We have not heard a word of that since he won with the commanding lead that he did.

But if he were to lose here or, you know, have a much more narrow margin, I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that we could hear the former president say that there was voter fraud or that the New Hampshire election was rigged. Are you confident in the integrity of the New Hampshire primary process?

AGER: I'm very, very confident. We have paper ballots. And so everybody votes with a paper ballot. You have to physically fill in the oval. We have some machines that are optical scanners that read those ovals. But we keep the paper ballots for over a year so that we can do hand recounts as necessary.

We don't have any mail-in ballots. We don't have early voting. And so we have the very traditional paper ballots, election day. Very few exceptions for absentee ballots. I've been personally part of over 30 hand recounts. None of them had any problems at all.

We had the one incident in Windham, where they were folded incorrectly. The ballots were folded on the oval and so there was a shadow.

HUNT: Right.

AGER: But that's a well-known problem. They used the wrong folding machines. And so it was human error.

I have absolutely no - no concern whatsoever with the election fraud here. Isolated cases perhaps, onesie, twosies, but there's -

HUNT: Nothing that would change that (ph).

AGER: No, absolutely not.

HUNT: Are you - have you and the state party prepared for the possibility of a legal challenge from the former president?

AGER: No, we don't anticipate that at all. We're using the exact same procedures we used in the last two elections where President Trump won in New Hampshire. And so I don't see any concern there whatsoever.

HUNT: I guess we will see. Nikki Haley at this point within striking distance.

AGER: Yes.

HUNT: We'll see if that Iowa -- what kind of momentum she carried from Iowa.

Chris Ager, chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party. Chris, thank you very much for being with us.

AGER: Thank you.

HUNT: Phil. Poppy.

HARLOW: Fascinating conversation, Kasie. Thank you. We'll get back to you in just a second.

It was a huge night in politics. It was also TV's biggest night, "Succession" and "The Bear" taking home the big wins at the primetime Emmy Awards. It was also a night filled with television nostalgia. We'll break down some of the big moments in case you missed them, next.

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[06:57:54]

MATTINGLY: Well, with a lot of the country in the cold yesterday, it was a good night to bundle up on the couch with the Iowa caucuses, you had the NFL playoffs and the prime time Emmys, all on at the same time. The awards show was delayed four months due to Hollywood's twin actors and writers' strikes. It was a night of near sweeps with "Succession," "The Bear" and "Beef" dominating their respective categories.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a show about a family, but it's also about when partisan politics get -- partisan news coverage gets intertwined with - with divisive right-wing politics. And after four seasons of satire, as I understand it, that's a problem we have now fixed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I just want to thank restaurants as a whole, hospitality as a whole.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: What a moment. Other notable winners include "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver," "RuPaul's Drag Race," and Quinta Brunson from "Abbott Elementary" who became the first black woman to win best actress in a comedy series in more than 40 years.

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QUINTA BRUNSON, BEST ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES, "ABBOTT ELEMENTARY": I am so happy to be able to live my dream and act out comedy. And I say it every time, but I just love comedy so much.

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MATTINGLY: And although he wasn't there in person, Elton John joined the elite ranks of EGOT recipients. People who have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony for his farewell concert special.

Your aspiration is to watch "The Bear."

HARLOW: I've been trying.

MATTINGLY: And my only goal this week, month, and year is to ensure that you're able to accomplish that.

HARLOW: Wait, so you're taking my children then? I can't turn it on in front of them and -

MATTINGLY: That was actually - no, sorry, somebody's - they're talking to me in my ear right now.

HARLOW: Yes.

MATTINGLY: I can't hear what you're actually saying. HARLOW: I -- when you go to bed at the same time as your children, there is no time to enjoy things like "The Bear."

MATTINGLY: We'll figure it out.

HARLOW: Thank you for - thank you for babysitting.

MATTINGLY: We're going to figure it out.

CNN THIS MORNING continues right now.

[06:59:59]

And good Tuesday morning, everyone, I'm Phil Mattingly, with Poppy Harlow in New York. Kasie Hunt is in New Hampshire, where the GOP presidential race is heading today.