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CNN This Morning

Trump Wins Big in Iowa, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) Beats Haley for Second; Snowfall Hits East Coast Cities, Breaks Snow Drought; World Economic Forum Continues Today in Davos. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired January 16, 2024 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Phil Matting with Poppy Harlow in New York. Kasie Hunt is in New Hampshire, where the GOP presidential race is heading today. It's heading there after Donald Trump seized a landslide victory in the Iowa caucuses, winning by a historic margin and making it clear he still has an iron grip on the Republican Party.

Trump dominated the competition, logging 51 percent of the vote at last count. Ron DeSantis edged out Nikki Haley for a distant second place.

Now, Trump swept 98 of the 99 counties in Iowa, all except for one where Haley is currently leading by a single vote.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Trump pulled off the huge win even though he spent little time, relatively speaking, campaigning on the ground in Iowa, when you compare it to his rivals. Here's how many public events each one of them had. Just look at that. 308 for Ramaswamy, by the way, he was out and 22 for Trump. Haley and DeSantis are vowing, though, to turn the tide next week in New Hampshire. But in his victory speech, Trump acted like this thing was already over.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: I want to congratulate Ron and Nikki for having a good time together. We're all having a good time together, and I think they both actually did very well.

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You helped us get a ticket punched out of the Hawkeye State, and I guarantee you this, I will not let you down.

NIKKI HALEY, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Our campaign is the last best hope of stopping the Trump-Biden nightmare.

I love you, Iowa, but we're on to New Hampshire.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: We have team coverage this morning from Iowa to New Hampshire. Let's start right here with Phil at the magic wall. Looking at the numbers from last night, the margin of victory was pretty unprecedented, right?

MATTINGLY: Yes. And if you want to get a sense of things, just look at the map. We just told you 98 of 91 counties were won by Donald Trump. That's all the red right here. The one county that Nikki Haley is currently ahead. She's ahead in Johnson County. It's the home of the University of Iowa, Iowa City suburbs. This is supposed to be the type of county where Nikki Haley was supposed to make some inroads against Trump. She's currently leading by one vote.

And that actually underscores what we saw, and that is the Republican Party is still Donald Trump's party. Maybe there're some questions heading into the Iowa caucuses, whether or not that was the case. The polling seemed to say otherwise. Republican leaders throughout the federal and state ranks seem to say otherwise. Now, Iowa is also saying otherwise.

And if you want to know why you say that, you can flip back into 2016 and see how Donald Trump actually did in the state of Iowa. He lost it. He lost it by about three points to Ted Cruz. And if you look everywhere you see yellow on this map were places where Ted Cruz won. Donald Trump had problems with evangelicals. He had problems in the suburbs where Marco Rubio scored a number of county victories as well.

Flip back into 2024, that was not the case at all. In fact, if you want to see where Trump underperformed his 2016 results, you'll see no color whatsoever. He overperformed 2016 in every single one of Iowa's 99 counties.

So, what does that tell you when you look at the map? Well, when you look at the entrance polls, there's some interesting things to pull away from it. One, obviously, Donald Trump was dominant in this race. But what was most interesting, I think, is if you poll out where he sits within the party, is Trump fit for the presidency, even if he's convicted of a crime? This is not just Trump supporters. This is the Iowa caucus. entrance polls for Republicans. 65 percent say even if Trump is convicted of a crime, he is still fit for the presidency.

What about whether or not people identify as part of the MAGA movement? Obviously, a significant number of Donald Trump supporters, 78 percent say they do, but also 11 percent of DeSantis supporters, 3 percent of Haley supporters. The MAGA movement, whether you like it or not, is still central and core to the Republican Party.

Now, you can talk about how this is just Iowa. New Hampshire might be different. South Carolina could be different as well. But the reality right now, even as we head into New Hampshire, where Nikki Haley is looking like she has some opportunity based on recent polls, is when you look at this map and you look at the polling and you look at where Republican leaders and officials have been over the course of the last several months, including almost the entire House Republican leadership over the course of the last couple of weeks, it's Donald Trump's party, and he is, right now, at least, on the path to be the Republican nominee, Poppy.

HARLOW: No question about it at all. Phil, so helpful, thank you very much. And Nikki Haley really happy to get to New Hampshire this morning after being handed a third place finish in Iowa. She told her supporters her campaign is still ramping up. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HALEY: When you look at how we're doing in New Hampshire, in South Carolina and beyond, I can safely say tonight, Iowa made this Republican primary a two-person race.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: She means her and Trump, even though DeSantis topped her.

Today, all three of the top candidates will be campaigning in New Hampshire, where polls again show Trump as the frontrunner. But Nikki Haley has carved out a double-digit lead there over DeSantis.

[07:05:00]

The candidates are also bracing for more brutal weather, although not as cold as parts of the state are under advisories for snow and slick conditions.

Kasie Hunt in Manchester, where you are warm, I know.

MATTINGLY: Er -- warmer.

HARLOW: Er - warmer, the emphasis on er this morning. It was so interesting to hear the way that Nikki Haley spoke last night, essentially cutting Ron DeSantis out of all of this. He has a much steeper hill to climb for sure in New Hampshire. You ran into her team at the airport last night. How good are they feeling?

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, Poppy, you know, as we were talking about this earlier, I felt like they were grimly determined. We ran into them at the. There's an airport where charter planes would fly out of Des Moines. They come to Manchester. It's kind of this hallowed campaign tradition. You bump into everybody.

And it was really telling to me that she was the only candidate there, along with a handful of us reporters who were going, Ron DeSantis going on to South Carolina, Donald Trump going to New York to attend the latest one of his many trials. It really says a lot about how Nikki Haley is focusing here and also about all the additional dynamics of the race.

We are here at Shavashan (ph), which is a hallowed stop on the New Hampshire primary campaign trail. Behind me, there are bullets and boards covered with bumper stickers from the various campaigns. I came here with Mitt Romney back in 2011 when he was running for president, I think, was my first time visiting here. We're starting to get breakfast service underway, some of these New Hampshire voters trickling in. And some of the big questions here, one, what are those especially undeclared New Hampshire voters going to do here? They can vote in the Republican primary and indications seem to be that they would be open to voting for Nikki Haley. Two, what does Ron DeSantis do? Do his donors keep writing checks that allow him to stay in the race? And, three, how does Nikki Haley handle the question of Donald Trump? And we got some interesting clues from her speech last night, as well as from a new ad. Take a look first at what she had to say, how she described the looming potential general election as she heads into New Hampshire. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HALEY: Trump and Biden both lack a vision for our country's future because both are consumed by the past, by investigations, by vendettas, by grievances.

Our campaign is the last best hope of stopping the Trump-Biden nightmare.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: The Trump-Biden nightmare, that's much more specific language than she's used in the past, and she's backing it up with money. There is a new ad on the airwaves here that hammers this message home. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The two most disliked politicians in America, Trump and Biden, both are consumed by chaos, negativity and grievances of the past. The better choice for a better America, Nikki Haley.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

UNT: Fascinating messaging here, interesting to me that they waited until after Iowa to do this. Retrospectively, I wonder if they're not going to wish that they did it sooner because it is true that all of our polling shows people want different choices than Donald Trump and Joe Biden. But after Iowa last night, it seems like we are on a firmer track than ever for that to be what happens, and Nikki Haley is finally trying to take advantage of that.

HARLOW: Yes. Is it too late? It's a great question. Kasie, thank you. We'll get back to you very soon.

MATTINGLY: And joining us with more analysis now, CNN Senior Political Commentator Ana Navarro, CNN Senior Political Commentator, former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger, CNN Political Commentator and former Biden White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield and CNN Senior Political Commentator and former Senior Adviser to President Obama David Axelrod.

I just want to start by saying, look, I know there's a lot of talk behind the scenes about splits between the Obama and Biden folks, but Kate was helping Axe straighten his tie during the break. I saw a unity moment bringing people together, much like Donald Trump last night in Iowa.

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. Absolutely, absolutely. You know, watching you do that board and looking at the red state of Iowa, it looked like a MAGA hat. And that was sort of emblematic of where the Republican Party is. The cohort, if you look at all the cross tabs, the cohort that was most striking that former President Trump has the most sway with are this group called Republicans. And that's pretty handy.

MATTINGLY: Deep in the cross tabs.

AXELROD: That's a handy thing to have when you're running for the party's nomination.

Nikki Haley, and the reason she is looking forward to New Hampshire, is she does better with independent voters, with some Democrats who want to influence the Republican primary, but you can't win the nomination that way.

And so improbable as it seems, a guy who has four -- who's under four indictments, 91 counts, who presided over the insurrection that we saw on January 6th seems well on his way to the nomination.

[07:10:00]

HARLOW: Go ahead.

ADAM KINZINGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It is disheartening because as a Republican, to watch -- Axe is right. I mean, it's Trump's party now. There's no -- so the thing that really stands out to me, it's like, if I had a time machine, CNN had some numbers that showed of the people that believe the election was legitimate, which it was, by the way. It was about a 30-30-30 split between DeSantis, Trump and Haley. Of those that think it was stolen, it was like Trump by a mile. I think Trump only actually got like 9 percent of the people that thought it was legitimate.

So, that makes me wonder if we could go back in time and actual leaders of the actual Republican Party could actually convince people that the election was legitimate, which it was, would that have made a difference in where we are today? And that is showing me what the importance of leadership is, because when Donald Trump said it was stolen and every other second tier influencer in the GOP says, yes, it was stolen, you're now convincing the party that he's a victim. If they'd have actually taken a stand and said, no, it wasn't stolen, it would have been different.

ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, Adam, what's the point at this point crying over spilled milk? We are where we are, right? Like if my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a bicycle. It didn't happen. They didn't stand up. They didn't --

AXELROD: I've always said that.

NAVARRO: It's actually a Spanish saying, (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE). But, look, I think it's depressing. It's a grim day for people like you. I mean, I think it should be a wakeup call for Republicans who don't want Trump, for center-leaning independence and right-leaning independence, and, frankly, for Democrats who have been fretting and wringing their hands and clutching their pearls for the last year, the last thing between Donald Trump and the presidency, the name is Joe Biden.

And so I think it's time for people to really wake up. And this depression, this fear, this anger, this outrage, this aghast, meant that I feel today at watching the results channel that into figuring out how we stop Donald Trump from ever being president again.

AXELROD: He wants a rebuttal.

KATE BEDINGFIELD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: But I think we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that this is a weakness for Trump in the general election. I mean, yes, it is hard. As people who care about democracy, it's hard to look at Donald Trump romping through Iowa last night and feel okay, that he's back on the national scene and he's presumably going to be the Republican nominee.

But for the slice of voters who are ultimately going to decide this election, we've seen time and again they actually reject his politics of retribution. They reject the idea that the 2020 election, they reject the big lie. There's a huge audience for this within the Republican primary electorate that's obviously upsetting.

But for people who are listening and hopefully are not totally abandoning hope, this is not -- the Republicans are now putting forward their most damaged potential nominee.

NAVARRO: Mind you, though, last night, he left the politics of retribution behind. He came out and he sounded like Barney the Dinosaur, right? He loved everyone. He wasn't calling him Ron Desanctimonious. He wasn't calling Nikki Haley bird brain. He was all of a sudden giving them compliments. It was an interesting --

BEDINGFIELD: But how many moments -- how long is that going to last, one, and, two, how many times have we seen that, right? I mean, we could go back through clips of the last four years, the last eight years and pick out moments --

AXELROD: There was a strategic purpose for it, right? He just wanted to signal, this is over, everybody get on.

BEDINGFIELD: Exactly. But this was not like a wholesale speech.

AXELROD: Yes. Yes.

MATTINGLY: When J.B. Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, I was doing the CNN thing yesterday and there was some comment where he said, it doesn't matter if Trump or Haley or whatever, they're all MAGA, like that is a way that you are going to, as Democrats, push aside the people that you need to vote for Joe Biden is when people like J.B. Pritzker says, oh, they're all just MAGA. Like that to me is not how you put together a winning --

HARLOW: It's a good thing that we have J.B. Pritzker joining us in about an hour, and we'll ask him about that.

AXELROD: That's incredible. You're way ahead of the game.

HARLOW: Tend to be on this.

AXELROD: Look, the thing that I would look at if I were the Biden campaign is that third of people who say, no, the election was legitimate, no -- yes, I think that President Trump would be unfit if he were convicted of a crime, seems to me among that group, there are people who might consider voting for Biden.

But I don't consider myself a pearl-clutcher. I consider myself a realist.

NAVARRO: Well, good. Because I don't think pearls would look very good on you, particularly not with that outfit.

AXELROD: Well, I certainly wouldn't wear them here.

But he needs -- the president and his campaign need to get into gear and they need a message. And they need a message that takes in not just democracy but the day-to-day concerns that people have, and they need to prosecute it every single day through every single surrogate.

[07:15:06]

That's what winning campaigns do.

So, the people who have to sort of get in gear are not those who have concerns about what might happen in November but the campaign itself. And there are signs that that's beginning to happen. It has to happen faster because the threat is clear.

And if there's one thing that the Biden campaign should be happy about is it's very clear now what the race is. There's no ambiguity. It's going to be Biden versus Trump. And so begin to draw those parallels not just on democracy, but on issues that are important day-to-day in people's lives.

BEDINGFIELD: And if you look at the measures of enthusiasm that are available to us right now, look at what the Biden campaign raised in Q4. They raised a significant amount of money. They raised a lot of money from smaller donors. There are signs that people are motivated by -- I would argue, by the Biden agenda, but also because the race is coming into focus, because we know this is going to be a question of kind of our fundamental existential do we care about democracy, is democracy going to survive.

I absolutely agree the message has to be broader than that but I don't think we should underestimate what we saw from voters in 2022 and 2023. They believe that a threat to democracy. They reject a threat to democracy. And that is motivating for the people. AXELROD: I'm not suggesting he doesn't have talking points in his record that will support a message, but just let's all be aware, and Trump proved again yesterday, he is not a normal candidate and he is a pretty formidable candidate. And now he's on the ballot.

NAVARRO: But, Axe, one of my issues is that even Democrats have been fretting over Biden's age. And I look at this as a Republican, and I'm just puzzled by it because I look at Donald Trump and walking around in Iowa, he looked like he was in his last breath a couple of times.

He says crazy things. When he's not talking about magnets, he's talking about windmills. Yesterday, he said that he won Iowa twice. He didn't. He lost in 2016. When Joe Biden says that even Democrats want to put him in an old folks' home and out to pasture, no Republican is saying, well, except for Nikki Haley, is saying Donald Trump is decrepit, old and saying crazy things too. So --

AXELROD: It may be puzzling, but if you look at polling, it's an obstacle that has to be overcome.

NAVARRO: How do you overcome it? He's 81.

AXELROD: Well, you run an aggressive, comparative message from now to the end.

MATTINGLY: I mean, the guy who's running against him is one and O against him, I would just note. For whatever it's worth, also, Chris Sununu and Kim Reynolds both saying they would vote for Donald Trump even though they've endorsed other people. It tells you everything you need to know right now.

David Axelrod, Kate Bedingfield, Adam Kinzinger, Ana Navarro, thanks, guys, I appreciate it.

HARLOW: Fresh off his win in Iowa, Trump expected to be back here in New York. He's going to be in a courtroom today, a jury set to determine how much he will have to pay in damages for defaming the columnist, E. Jean Carroll.

MATTINGLY: And brutal weather across the country creating a massive headache for travelers this morning. How the freezing temperatures could impact you. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:20:00]

HARLOW: You're looking at live pictures right now of cities, airports in the northeast where snow is falling this morning. Some cities will see about an inch or more of snowfall for the first time in almost two years.

This is a polar blast is bringing bitterly cold temperatures to so much of the United States today. More than 120 million people this morning under severe wind chill alerts from border to border.

MATTINGLY: The winter storm also dropping at least an inch of snow in several eastern cities, breaking in almost two-year long snow drought.

CNN's Lucy Kafanov joins us live from Denver International Airport. Denver -- Lucy, one of those mornings, how much is the weather impacting travel right now based on where you are?

LUCY KAFANOV, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Well, welcome to the new climate change normal. Good morning, guys. It is not a fun time to travel all across the country. Thousands of flights have been delayed or canceled due to snow, ice, as well as bone-chilling temperatures, the winter weather causing consecutive days of headaches for travelers, flight cancelations peaking on Monday, according to FlightAware, with more than 3,200 flights canceled today. So far, that number, over 1,200, and climbing, United and Southwest topping the list of the most affected airlines here at Denver International Airport, as well as nationwide. The most affected airports, us at DIA, there's also Chicago O'Hare, Houston Bush International, and also Nashville.

Now, that wintry mix expected to continue from Texas to the lower Mississippi Valley into parts of the Tennessee Valley. National Weather Service warning folks, if you have to travel, have a cold survival kit if you must travel.

Some parts of Colorado got over four feet of snow over this Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday weekend. And many of the travelers who spent that time on the slopes actually got trapped here in Colorado temporarily as highways were closed. There was even a mini avalanche that impacted some of that travel.

Now, we saw lows of negative 16 degrees here in Denver yesterday. Thankfully, the temperatures are warming up for us. Unfortunately, that brutal and prolonged Arctic blast continuing to bring cold temperatures all across the country, especially the northeast. Nearly 80 percent of the U.S. expecting to see below freezing temperatures. More than 100 million people are under wind chill alerts. And also the Pacific Northwest just recovered from that terrible storm, now also under an ice weather alert, guys.

So, if you have to travel, definitely check with your airline, check the roads. And if you don't have to travel, that's probably for the best.

MATTINGLY: Important note. Lucy Kafanov, thank you.

HARLOW: So, ahead, our coverage to the race for the White House continues. It is now heading from Iowa East to New Hampshire. Is there a reason to believe next week's primary will be any different than we saw last night?

MATTINGLY: And we're going to dig deeper into the Iowa results. The reaction to Trump's commanding win from the people endorsing him, that's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:25:00] HARLOW: Welcome back. So, right now, the annual World Economic Forum, known as WEF, is happening in Davos, Switzerland. It's where business leaders, economists, politicians all come and they mix to discuss the biggest issues facing the global economy.

Richard Quest is always there and he joins us live this morning after speaking with Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan about how he sees the economy right now, also navigating global headwinds. Let's take a listen to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD QUEST, CNN ANCHOR: How concerned are you at the prospect of a second Trump presidency, or maybe you're not concerned at all?

BRIAN MOYNIHAN, CEO, BANK OF AMERICA: As I tell people, we've been around since 1784. That election in 1800, they made a great show about it called Hamilton and stuff. So, you know, a CEO's job, a company's job is to be ready for anything. And whether it's -- no matter which administration, the prior Trump, the current Biden administration wins, we'll be ready to go.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Richard Quest joins us now live from Davos. The question that every CEO wants to be asked, that is the question they want to answer, Richard. But, seriously, what did he tell you about this economy? Is it shaky? Is it not? What does he see?

QUEST: No. He was extremely bullish. In fact, I asked him about his yellow tie. He said, well, the sun is shining, and to be sure, this year may not be as good as people hoped, although, previously, things have always been better than we'd expected.

And then he went into the detail of why he says the U.S. economy remains robust and, if you will, is going to do well.

[07:30:01]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MOYNIHAN: Last year this time, when I was on with you, we had a recession predicted. They kept pushing out.