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Bank Of America CEO: We Don't Understand What AI Can Do Yet; Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) On Donald Trump's Decisive Win Of The Iowa Republican Caucuses; Evangelicals Lift Trump To Dominant Victory In Iowa. Aired 7:30-8a ET
Aired January 16, 2024 - 07:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[07:30:00]
RICHARD QUEST, CNN ANCHOR: And if you will, is going to do well.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRIAN MOYNIHAN, CEO, BANK OF AMERICA: Last year at this time when I was on with you, we had a recession predictor --
QUEST: Right.
MOYNIHAN: -- that kept pushing it out.
Now, what's that attributed to in the U.S. particularly? It's attributable to the U.S. consumer. We have people who are making money and are employed. Unemployment is very low. They're getting paid more. Inflation is still tough on a lot of them so you can't discount that.
But on the other hand, the stock market being up. On the other hand, they've accumulated wealth. On the other hand, they're making more -- a lot more money.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: The totality of what he's been talking about is so much more optimistic than anything we've seen elsewhere from other people.
And the big issue, of course, is AI, artificial intelligence. Everybody -- there is an orgy of AI going up on the promenade at the moment. Everybody's talking AI this, AI that.
And so I asked Brian Moynihan what is it about AI and how is BOA doing AI?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: But where do you think we are between that?
MOYNIHAN: I think we're here because it has such unusual promise.
QUEST: Oh, yes.
MOYNIHAN: And so, unprepared, not in a negative sense, that we don't understand what it can do yet.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: And so, there you have it -- ready for AI, which is the core question that we're asking -- that we asked Brian. And you can see by now we've got lots of answers or getting more and more. The president of the European Commission, the Bank of America CEO, the head of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg.
And you've always got to be careful with this thing that people don't gravitate too much in the middle. Well, now, they're gravitating that we are, as a society, dangerously unprepared.
And I will allow both you and your good colleagues, where would you go on this, Poppy and Phil? Where would you go? So you can direct me left or right from this point.
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: You first.
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Yeah. I just -- I'll answer your question. Did you bring that on the plane with you or how did you -- the whiteboard. Is that -- like, how did you have that with you?
QUEST: Secrets, secrets.
MATTINGLY: I knew it. I knew it. I can never get anything past you.
So I'm leaning towards your left, Richard -- further towards your left.
QUEST: So, OK -- all right. Shout stop.
MATTINGLY: Closer to the dangerously unprepared. You may -- a little bit closer. We'll go right there. Right there. Right there. That's great. No, you're still going.
QUEST: OK. Poppy?
HARLOW: I'm further -- I'm further to the left. I'd be beyond Phil, beyond Brian Moynihan. I'm thinking about that warning we got yesterday from the IMF, Richard, about how many jobs are going to be dramatically changed because of AI.
QUEST: Yeah.
HARLOW: But at the same time, I'm really optimistic about what it could do in the right hands, handled the right way. So I miss you and your whiteboard and the mountains in Davos, Richard Quest. Thank you.
QUEST: I'm putting you there.
HARLOW: Thank you.
QUEST: Thank you.
HARLOW: Perfect. Thank you. MATTINGLY: Thank you, Richard.
HARLOW: Fascinating and fun, as he always is.
MATTINGLY: I love his random whiteboard.
HARLOW: Of course he does.
MATTINGLY: Of course he does.
HARLOW: We are going to dig deeper into yesterday's results in Iowa. We're going to zero in on where the candidates did well and what this could mean for New Hampshire coming up.
MATTINGLY: Plus, how the Biden team is framing Trump's historic win in Iowa and what it could tell us about the general election. That's ahead.
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[07:36:50]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is time now for everybody -- our country to come together. We want to come together whether it's Republican or Democrat, or liberal or conservative. It would be so nice if we could come together and straighten out the world and straighten out the problem. We're going to come together. It's going to happen soon, too. It's going to happen soon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: It was, at least for a moment, a striking conciliatory tone from the former president calling for unity after a decisive victory in Iowa last night.
Meanwhile, Ron DeSantis barely eked out a second-place finish ahead of Nikki Haley, even after he poured a huge amount of resources into Iowa.
Joining us now, Republican congressman from Florida, Mike Waltz. He has endorsed Donald Trump for president. Congressman, I appreciate your time this morning.
Do you think at this point that every other Republican who is in the race should get out?
REP. MIKE WALTZ (R-FL): Well, it was certainly a historic, decisive victory. And I've got to tell you it was cold. And the caucus site where I spoke -- still, the organizers were telling me that they were surprised at how many people came out.
Look, I think it is crystal clear President Trump is going to be the nominee. The sooner we get to that realization in the other campaigns the better. And then we can start drawing those contrasts with what the economy
looked like under President Trump with how it is now. What the border looked like then and how it now. What the world situation with the world on fire right now. Just a few years ago, we've gone from Abraham Accords and Middle East Peace to multiple wars across the Middle East and in Europe.
So, yeah, we're ready to get to that contrast sooner than later.
MATTINGLY: Nikki Haley, who made New Hampshire, which is next up, the centerpiece for her campaign putting out a new ad this morning and also having messaged last night saying look, nobody wants a rematch. If you look at the polls, most Americans don't want to see a replay of 2020.
What do you say to that?
WALTZ: Well, I've got to say the Republican Party has made it clear and I think is going to continue to make it clear that President Trump is the leader of the party and that we want to get back to his policies that worked and that were working for the country and, frankly, were working for the world.
And I think the premise that his opponents have been testing is you liked a lot of the America First policies, whether it was record low unemployment, inflation down, the border under control, crime on decline, the pivot on China, but can you get all of that without him?
And I've argued that you don't get SpaceX without Elon Musk. You don't get Apple without Steve Jobs. And you don't get those policies that many leaders in the Republican Party say we want to emulate, get back to, and build on without the guy who had the vision and actually executed and put them in place.
MATTINGLY: Right.
WALTZ: So, look, I understand what some polls say but we -- you couldn't get a more clear signal of momentum than you got last night with a historic win in Iowa.
[07:40:00]
MATTINGLY: No. The numbers were very clear, at least in the state of Iowa.
The downside risk, though, that you've heard some candidates lay out -- Ron DeSantis, in particular -- is that he also could be convicted over the course of -- with the 91 criminal charges that he faces.
If the former president is convicted will you support him no matter what?
WALTZ: Look, with what we've seen getting laid out with this bogus, ridiculous case in New York, with what we're seeing now with the total conflict of interest and possibly corruption in Georgia, we could go down the list. These cases -- people see right through them. This is a weaponization of our Justice Department and it only bolstered support for President Trump. His numbers have only increased.
So not only would I support him, I think you're going to see the American people support him.
MATTINGLY: You mentioned the Fulton County D.A. case and also the New York case. You didn't mention the special counsel's case, both Jack Smith, including election interference and the classified documents.
Do you think those are in that same lane?
WALTZ: Oh, yeah. I mean, look, when we're starting to parse between legal theories, between the -- between the Espionage Act, between the Presidential Records Act -- when you have over 80 cases, according to the National Archives, of senators, members of Congress, and every presidential office and officeholder in the last several decades have had instances where they had disputes with classified documents. Where they sent them back and forth.
Look, that -- I think the American people see all that. Are we really going to take the leader of a party -- of an opposition party off the ballot and out of action when he's been voted in -- when the American people clearly want him back in -- over these kind of -- over these kind of disputes? Look, that is -- that is, in my view, scary for our democracy when you have the party in power and its Justice Department going after its chief political opponent.
I've served in places as a Green Beret around the world where that happens.
MATTINGLY: Right.
WALTZ: I never expected to see it here.
MATTINGLY: I would also note that as -- given your service and when you had served, if you'd taken documents and put them in a bathroom in a large box that were considered top secret, you would also probably be in trouble.
Can I ask you, though, before I let you go --
WALTZ: Fair enough but I wasn't the President of the United States.
MATTINGLY: No, no, no -- I understand.
WALTZ: I governed by a lot of -- a lot of case law.
MATTINGLY: I understand on that one.
WALTZ: I don't think that's a -- I don't think that's quite the same analogy.
MATTINGLY: Well, I mean, I --
WALTZ: And fair that if we want to go down that road we can talk about boxes sitting in a garage, admittedly, completely unguarded. We can talk about as a member of Congress -- MATTINGLY: No, I understand.
WALTZ: -- they take every document --
MATTINGLY: And look --
WALTZ: -- when you walk out of a SCIF.
MATTINGLY: I actually think this is a --
WALTZ: And then you have a -- years and years. How did they get there? On Amtrak? I mean --
MATTINGLY: I think there's
WALTZ: -- I think there's a lot to look into --
MATTINGLY: No, no, no.
WALTZ: -- (INAUDIBLE).
MATTINGLY: Look, I understand and I would say, Congressman --
WALTZ: -- in the part of the Justice Department.
MATTINGLY: -- I'm being entirely fair when I say this that there is a special counsel looking into that case as well -- Robert Hur, who has been assigned there. And I think there has not been an outcome yet that's announced. We certainly will cover it when it is announced.
I think the analog in terms of the types of classified documents that were contained and where they were contained -- I don't know if there's a lot of precedent for that. But to your point, it is a president and we're going to have to wait and see how that case moves forward.
Before I do let you go, though, on the political side of things. Almost the entire Republican delegation --
WALTZ: Yeah.
MATTINGLY: -- got behind the former president. Ron DeSantis is the governor of Florida and had a huge reelection victory.
What is your message to him right now, in particular, given the fact that he's still in this race heading into New Hampshire?
WALTZ: I'll get to that. I just want to say one more thing with these cases though and I think this is a critical point. I didn't hear about that anywhere in Iowa. I don't hear about it back home in Florida. What I hear about are kitchen table issues and what President Trump --
MATTINGLY: Right.
WALTZ: -- has done in his past. A vision going forward. He's not looking back in the past. So we're just not hearing that at all from anybody I'm talking to.
In terms -- look, Gov. DeSantis has been a fantastic governor. I don't think we would have gotten through COVID the way Florida did --
MATTINGLY: Right.
WALTZ: -- without his leadership.
What I'm hearing from folks on the ground is they just don't understand why he didn't wait. He's a young guy with -- that's very bright. It's going to be an open presidential seat in '28 and a lot of people are shaking their heads. He's still got a lot of great work to do as governor and we look forward to seeing that.
MATTINGLY: All right, Congressman Mike Waltz. Always appreciate your time, sir. Thank you.
WALTZ: All right. Thank you.
MATTINGLY: And today at noon on "INSIDE POLITICS" be sure to watch Dana Bash's sit-down interview with Nikki Haley and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu.
HARLOW: Phil, that was fascinating. Thank you for that.
Coming up, evangelical voters helped make Donald Trump's landslide victory in Iowa possible. They were a big part of it. We're going to take a closer look at their influence in the caucuses and the power they hold as this race moves forward.
(COMMERCIAL)
[07:48:37]
HARLOW: Donald Trump notching big gains with evangelical voters in Iowa last night. CNN's entrance poll data showed Trump won 53 percent of Iowa voters who identify as white, born-again, or evangelical Christians this time around. He won just about a quarter of them eight years ago.
With us now, Tim Alberta, a staff writer at The Atlantic and also the author of an incredibly revealing new book, "The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism."
You know this topic I think can help us understand what happened last night with the evangelical vote better than almost anyone. Trump did not say nice things about evangelicals, as you reported back in 2016. Not nice things at all. But you say that he has a mercenary-like relationship with them.
Why did we see that last night? What happened?
TIM ALBERTA, STAFF WRITER, THE ATLANTIC, AUTHOR, "THE KINGDOM, THE POWER, AND THE GLORY: AMERICAN EVANGELICALS IN AN AGE OF EXTREMISM" (via Webex by Cisco): Yeah. I mean, Poppy, look, eight years ago what you would hear from Republican voters, particularly in the early stages of the primary -- when you would talk to evangelical leaders they were very cool towards Donald Trump -- very suspicious of Donald Trump -- and the numbers bore that out.
We -- in Iowa, which Ted Cruz won in 2016, Donald Trump won 22 percent of the evangelical vote. His strength there actually was with people who self-identified as not being born again or evangelical Christians. Trump actually carried those voters in Iowa but he lost by a significant margin among evangelical voters.
[07:50:08]
And I think that -- in Iowa, that result eight years ago was pretty well-representative of where the evangelical movement was in the early phases of the Republican primary.
But then as the race wore on and as eventually, Trump overtook Cruz and the others and it became clear he was going to be the nominee of the Republican Party, you would hear this language around well, it's a binary choice.
HARLOW: Um-hum.
ALBERTA: Donald Trump is the lesser of two evils. We have to -- we have to hold our nose and vote for this guy to keep Hillary Clinton out of the White House.
HARLOW: But --
ALBERTA: Well, that seems like a lifetime ago because obviously, what we saw in Iowa last night was not a lesser of two evils situation. It was not a binary choice situation. Donald Trump winning 53 percent of all evangelical voters is just -- I mean, it's stunning, Poppy.
HARLOW: It is.
ALBERTA: And I think it does speak to -- it speaks to the evolution in this relationship from the lesser of two evils to really being a champion of a movement.
HARLOW: For sure.
Tim, listen to this from yesterday. We had Pastor Decker on. He is a pastor in Ottumwa, Iowa. And here is how he explained his support for Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PASTOR TRAVIS DECKER, OTTUMWA BAPTIST TEMPLE: 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.
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 --
HARLOW: OK.
DECKER: -- of being a good president, especially on abortion.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: That pastor and many evangelicals know exactly who Trump is and they wouldn't want him teaching Sunday School to their kids, but still 100 percent behind him.
ALBERTA: Yeah. Well -- and listen, I guess that's a more defensible position -- intellectually honest position than you hear from some other evangelical leaders who will tell you that they believe that Trump is actually -- has become born again himself and that he's actually an agent of the almighty and that he's really in his personal private life quite pious.
I mean, you do have I think a large number of these voters, Poppy, who would say exactly what that pastor just said a moment ago, which is that they've made sort of a cold, calculating, political decision here --
HARLOW: Um-hum.
ALBERTA: -- that they believe that on a policy basis, he is able to deliver for them and has a track record that no other Republican candidate can match up to.
What they're not necessarily willing or able to answer is the -- is this basic question of does someone's values -- someone like Donald Trump -- his values in talking about humans made in the image of God. Talking about them as vermin or talking about immigrants poisoning the blood of our nation. Someone who traffics in violent and often xenophobic and racist rhetoric. Does that person's -- just their core values -- does it align with some of your basic --
HARLOW: Um-hum.
ALBERTA: -- practicing beliefs --
HARLOW: And --
ALBERTA: -- as a follower of Jesus Christ aside from any policy --
HARLOW: Yeah.
ALBERTA: -- proposals that he may adhere to.
HARLOW: And, Tim, for people who haven't read your book and all your reporting on evangelicals, you're also the son of an evangelical pastor. So you are steeped in this.
I want to ask you about Nikki Haley before we go. You wrote, sort of, the profile on her in 2021. The title was "Nikki Haley's Time for Choosing." And in it, you said, "She doesn't know which Nikki Haley is going to be on the ballot." Do we know which Nikki Haley is on the ballot now? Because just last night she started grouping Trump and Biden together after refusing to go after Biden up until -- after Trump up until now. Who is the Nikki Haley now?
ALBERTA: You know, Poppy, she doesn't know. We don't know.
I mean, look, when Nikki Haley had her sort of now famous or infamous Civil War moment not long ago where she couldn't speak to slavery being the cause of the Civil War when she was asked that question, I think that was a pretty good window into Nikki Haley's inability to just decide once and for all that she was going to run and let the chips fall where they may being an authentic version of herself.
Nikki Haley grew up in South Carolina and has a lot of racial scar tissue. She knows what started the Civil War.
And she has very strong opinions about Donald Trump and his, sort of, hateful -- again, xenophobic, racist rhetoric over the years. She knows who he is and we know that because she has spoken to it, both publicly and privately. And yet, when it comes time to run against him, she's -- all she can muster up is well, chaos follows Donald Trump for better or worse. That's what she says. But she doesn't even speak to whether it's for better or worse.
[07:55:14]
So it's just -- it's almost -- it's just pathetic to watch her campaign play out the way that it has. Because if you're going to lose, at least lose saying what you believe and telling voters who it is that you really are and why you're different from the frontrunner -- the favorite to be the nominee of your party. But she's not willing to do that and I'm not sure whether it's because she thinks she has --
HARLOW: Yeah.
ALBERTA: -- a chance to be his vice president or not. But it's just been sort of a shell of a campaign in many ways.
HARLOW: I'd urge people to go back -- because you spent months with her reporting that out -- to read it. And I'm sure she'll address this with Dana Bash today in their interview at noon Eastern time.
Tim, thanks very much for joining us this morning.
ALBERTA: Thanks, Poppy.
MATTINGLY: Well, later today, investigators in the Gilgo Beach murders expected to announce a significant development in the case. We're going to be live in Long Island with more details.
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