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CNN This Morning
Trump Targets Haley, DeSantis Follows Suit; Haley Draws Ire for Comments on Racism in America. Aired 6-6:30a ET
Aired January 17, 2024 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[06:00:05]
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Morning, everyone. So glad you're with us. I'm Poppy Harlow with Phil Mattingly in New York.
Trump targets Nikki Haley in New Hampshire, taking a swipe at her name and comparing her to Hillary Clinton. Why the former president says even talking about Ron DeSantis now is a waste.
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: And Haley says America, quote, "has never been a racist country" while talking about racism she experienced, in pretty much the same sentence. How she's explaining that comment, which comes just weeks after she failed to mention slavery as the root cause of the Civil War.
And this morning, a big breakthrough. There's a deal to get medical supplies to Israeli hostages by Hamas. What Gaza is getting in return as the U.S. carries out more strikes in the region.
CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.
HARLOW: And we do begin with politics this morning. The battle for New Hampshire is underway, with Donald Trump and Nikki Haley holding dueling rallies, and Ron DeSantis ramping up his ground game with just days left until what could be a make-or-break primary.
Haley and DeSantis are facing the harsh reality that Trump could slam the door shut on this race next week, after his landslide victory in Iowa.
MATTINGLY: Now, during his rally in New Hampshire last night, Trump made it clear he sees only one opponent standing in his way of his relentless march to the GOP nomination.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Ron DeSanctimonious. Did he go down like a rock -- I don't even want to talk about him, because I don't want to waste it.
I do want to talk about Nikki. Because this perception that she's gone up.
She's not tough enough. We have a country that's in such bad shape. We have to take it back. Nikki Haley is a disaster.
I moved her to the United Nations, and honestly, she was not a good negotiator.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: Overnight, Trump launching ugly attacks against Haley on his social media platform, referring to her by her Indian first name, Nimarata, the same way he disparages President -- former President Obama by calling him Barack Hussein Obama.
Also posted -- he also posted an odd picture of Haley morphing into Hillary Clinton.
Last night, DeSantis also targeted Haley during a town hall here on CNN. He argued that she can't beat Trump after finishing in third place in Iowa.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: She said, and her campaign said, that there's only two tickets out of Iowa, that the top two out of Iowa would be viable and that she would finish at least second, and then that would be the race. Well, guess what happened?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: Omar Jimenez, live in Manchester, New Hampshire, with more. Quite an escalation of attacks from Trump on Haley overnight, and then Ron DeSantis saying, I am still here. Where are we now this morning?
OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, well, for starters, we are less than a week out to primary day here in New Hampshire at this point, and both Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis are trying to cut into what's been essentially Trump's dominance to this part.
Now, that said, Nikki Haley does appear to be better positioned to give Trump a serious challenge in the state, based on polls coming in, but polls are one thing. Securing the votes of these citizens in the last few days is another thing entirely.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JIMENEZ (voice-over): The Republican race for president is re-focusing in New Hampshire, with all three candidates campaigning in the Granite State after former President Trump's landslide victory in Iowa.
JIMENEZ: Do you think what happened in Iowa is going to happen here in New Hampshire?
SHELLEY ROY, NEW HAMPSHIRE UNDECIDED VOTER: I think that is a strong possibility of "yes."
JIMENEZ (voice-over): Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is sharpening his message to try to cut into some of Trump's overwhelming GOP support, and criticizing his GOP rivals for not debating in New Hampshire. DESANTIS: I'm the only candidate that actually agreed to come to New
Hampshire to debate.
I'm the only one who's not running a basement campaign at this point.
JIMENEZ (voice-over): Trump took a detour to New York to attend jury selection in the defamation case brought against him by E. Jean Carroll before heading to New Hampshire. A long line of supporters waited for him in the blistering cold to get into his campaign event.
TRUMP: I said, will people show up? But they always show up.
JIMENEZ (voice-over): Trump is trying to secure an equally dominant finish in New Hampshire to secure his path to the nomination.
TRUMP: We've really got to get back on to Biden and beating the Democrats and not wasting a lot of time with these two.
NIKKI HALEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Hi!
JIMENEZ (voice-over): Meanwhile, Haley is staking her campaign on a strong finish in the first primary state by courting support from more moderate voters.
[06:05:04]
GARY HOULE, NEW HAMPSHIRE INDEPENDENT VOTER: I am looking for an alternative Republican to run against Joe Biden.
JIMENEZ (voice-over): Her competitors say she can't win the primary without Republican support.
TRUMP: Nikki Haley, in particular, is counting on the Democrats and liberals to infiltrate your Republican primary.
DESANTIS: To win a Republican primary, you can't rely on Democrats coming in and changing their registration. You've got to be able to win core Republicans. You've got to be able to win conservatives, and she cannot do that.
JIMENEZ (voice-over): Haley's allies are hoping for a strong finish as she campaigns on a message of generational change.
HALEY: Don't you think we need to have mental competency tests for anyone over the age of 75?
These are people making decisions on our national security. These are people making decisions on the future of our economy. We need to know they're at the top of their game.
JIMENEZ (voice-over): But Haley is also facing criticism for how she answered a question about racism in the United States during an interview Tuesday.
HALEY: We're not a racist country, Brian. We've never been a racist country. Our goal is to make sure that today is better than yesterday. Are we perfect? No.
JIMENEZ (voice-over): Her campaign clarified her remarks in a statement, writing, "America has always had racism, but America has never been a racist country."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JIMENEZ (voice-over): Now, that was something Haley allies like Larry Hogan agreed with. And even Ron DeSantis, when he was asked about it, of course, despite of course, periods like slavery and segregation, where racism was literally built into the fundamentals of this country.
That said, all of these candidates are going to be out on the campaign trail today, with events through the afternoon and evening. Trump, in particular, starting his day back in court, at least expected to, in New York, before making his way here to New Hampshire -- Poppy, Phil.
HARLOW: A strategy that has been working for him. He continues. Omar, thanks very much for the reporting.
MATTINGLY: Joining us now to discuss, former Democratic Congressman Max Rose; CNN political analyst Natasha Alford; and CNN political commentator Scott Jennings.
Scott, I want to start with you. Because it lasted 22 hours, Donald Trump's unity message.
HARLOW: Phil is counting.
MATTINGLY: He was very complimentary. I hit the stopwatch. Twenty-four hours is fairly decent with him. Him training his sites directly on Nikki Haley.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.
MATTINGLY: One, I think it's a recognition of New Hampshire. But two, my sister thinks he knows if he wins New Hampshire and wins it by a lot, it's over.
JENNINGS: Yes. I mean, that's the -- that's the truth. He wins two states here and I don't know where anyone else goes.
That's the interesting thing also about the DeSantis strategy. He's not really competitive in New Hampshire. I guess he's thinking maybe if -- if Trump knocks Haley out there, then he'll get a shot at him in South Carolina and beyond.
But, you know, South Carolina and beyond looks a heck of a lot like Iowa.
MATTINGLY: Right.
JENNINGS: And we know what happened in Iowa.
And at this point, when you look at the national polling, Trump's sitting near 70 percent with Republicans. It's -- if Republicans make this decision, it's pretty obvious what it's going to be.
I mean, there's -- in New Hampshire this morning, there's a Suffolk University tracking poll out today. Trump is up 50-34, to 5. And so for DeSantis.
HARLOW: Five for DeSantis.
JENNINGS: For DeSantis. For him, I mean, I'm not certain what the path forward is. For Haley, this is the Alamo. And when you look at what Trump did among all the demographics in Iowa. If Republicans make this choice. If they are the dominant turnout factor here, then he's in pretty good shape.
HARLOW: It was interesting, Natasha. Yesterday, Governor Sununu made the argument in this great interview that Dana did with Nikki Haley and Sununu that, if you have such a conservative Republican electorate in Iowa, and you only have -- in his words, you only have 51 percent of them going for Trump, that portends big problems for him ahead.
It's seeing it the opposite way that Trump and his allies see it. Do you think there's merit to that? He's saying you've got the most conservative, and Trump can't get more.
NATASHA ALFORD, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I don't know. I think I look at Ron DeSantis as just Trump-lite. Right? I think that is his challenge right now, is that he's not distinct enough from Donald Trump.
And Donald Trump remains the front-runner because he has a history. He is, you know, a former president. So people are not willing to sort of jump towards a person who's promising to be like a man that they already admire and want to see.
So even that portion of the vote is going towards somebody who is imitating Trump in every way. I think this is Donald Trump's party, and that is what we are seeing.
HARLOW: Let's listen to some of DeSantis last night with Wolf.
ALFORD: yes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Donald Trump cruised to an historic victory. What could --
DESANTIS: If Donald Trump is the nominee, the election will revolve around all these legal issues, his trials, perhaps convictions if he goes to trial and loses there.
I just don't think we're going to succeed if all those issues are front and center on voters' minds.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: Should he have been saying that, like, a long time ago?
JENNINGS: You guys are assuming that -- he's assuming that Republicans --
HARLOW: Care?
JENNINGS: Don't want it to revolve around that. I actually think they do want it to revolve around that.
[06:10:05]
I mean, DeSantis got asked last night, what would you do as president? He gives off this nice long list of things that Republicans have always said they wanted a Republican president to do.
But I'm sort of coming around to the thinking that we don't really want the election to be about that. We want it to be about vindication for all of the things that he was just saying, Well, this is electoral poison. But, you know, for Trump's voters, getting vindication for it would be sweeter than any policy victory, I think.
MATTINGLY: Max, is it your sense that vindication can get 270 electoral votes?
MAX ROSE, FORMER DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSMAN: Probably not right now.
MATTINGLY: That's the ultimate -- and that's DeSantis' point, right? Like, yes, Republicans may be -- clearly seem to be in that spot, but does that spot get them 50 plus 1?
ROSE: What you're -- what you're going to see in a general election dynamic is Biden will seek to make it about Trump at every single turn, because he's certainly -- what they're finding in their data is they can't get over concerns about his age. They can't -- they just can't get over it, no matter how well the economy does.
Conversely, Trump clearly, they must clearly understand that independents will never get over his history with January 6th and all of these court cases. So they'll try to make it about Biden, and it will be back and forth.
We will never see more negative campaigning in the history of our politics than in a 2024 general election between Trump and Biden.
ALFORD: And we're not even thinking about all the people who are just going to stay home, because they are not inspired by Biden or motivated enough by the fear of Donald Trump, right? That whole idea that you're going to fearmonger people into going out to vote, it's not going to work the same way that worked in 2020.
MATTINGLY: It's with that positive note, and that burst of -- burst of sunshine and optimism that I say, come back, all of you. We have a lot more to get to on the panel.
HARLOW: Including this. Nikki Haley says she will only debate two people, Trump or Biden. Ahead, much more on how she's just dismissing DeSantis and eyeing the front-runner.
Plus this -- (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Search warrant! Coming down the stairs! Let's go.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: Newly released body camera video shows police in Ohio raiding a home. Inside, a baby on a ventilator. What the mother explains those exploding flash bangs did to her child. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:16:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HALEY: We're not a racist country, Brian. We've never been a racist country. Our goal is to make sure that today is better than yesterday.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: That is Nikki Haley yesterday, saying America has never been a racist country. Less than ten seconds later in that same answer, here's what she said also.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HALEY: I know I faced racism when I was growing up, but I can tell you, today is a lot better than it was then.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: Twelve hours after that, the current front-runner for the party's nomination, Donald Trump, posted this on his social media platform. Quote, "Anyone listening to Nikki 'Nimrada' Haley's wacked out speech last night" -- those are his words -- "would think that she won the Iowa primary. Notably, Trump misspelled her name, her given name, when he posted that, as well.
MATTINGLY: A week ago, Trump amplified a post that insinuated Haley was ineligible to run because her parents were not citizens at the time of her birth. That, of course, is false unequivocally. Haley was born in South Caroliana.
But it's the dog whistles like this that are straight out of Trump's playbook. For years, he was full-on birther, probably still is, peddling the lie over and over that President Obama was not born in the U.S. and using his middle name for specific effect.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: President Barack Hussein Obama.
It's no surprise that Joe Donnelly is holding a rally this weekend with Barack H. Obama.
President Barack Hussein Obama.
Barack Hussein Obama.
Crooked Joe Biden and his boss, Barack Hussein Obama, did this to us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: Let's bring back our team: Scott Jennings, Natasha Alford, Max Rose, as well.
Natasha, beginning with you on those comments, and we're going to pull up on the screen what she put out, a statement a little bit later yesterday after a lot of backlash over her saying that. We'll show you that as soon as we have it in a second.
But there's context here, too. Because what she said yesterday in that interview comes just a couple of weeks after her gaffe about what caused the Civil War, an answer that didn't include the word "slavery."
ALFORD: You do not deserve to be president of this country if you don't have a coherent, consistent message about race. It is just 101, right? If you're going to lead this country through a time of division and partisanship, you have to have a consistent message.
And I think this is why people don't trust Nikki Haley. They can't trust that she actually says what she means and she believes, but they -- they can count on her saying whatever sounds good to the audience that she's speaking to.
This will not work in a general election, OK? You want to say that America was not a racist country to voters who are in Buffalo, right, and just saw people killed in the top shooting, or in Jacksonville, Florida.
I mean, all of these voters are out there, and they want to know that you are going to tell the truth, but also that you have a message of hope for the future. Flip-flopping on that doesn't earn you any respect.
HARLOW: Especially on this issue.
ALFORD: Especially.
HARLOW: It just -- one note, in case people miss it. Her campaign later yesterday put out a statement that said America has always had racism, but America has never been a racist country.
ALFORD: That's even worse.
MATTINGLY: Why?
ALFORD: I mean, it's just -- it's talking out of both sides of your mouth. And again, we cannot trust leaders who don't actually have a vision around this, right?
People are tired of the division. They are tired of the sort of pain and gaslighting around racism.
And so if you come with a message that says, you know, we're not racist, but you know, I had a couple of experiences with racism, but -- it's just not cohesive, it's not coherent, and it undermines any sense of belief that this person actually stands on what they believe.
MATTINGLY: I would -- at the same time, I would venture that I don't know anybody in the Republican Party who would give that different of a message. In fact, Ron DeSantis agreed with it last night. I think Senator Tim Scott has said similar things.
JENNINGS: Noted Republican, Vice President Kamala Harris has said, "This is not a racist country," when she and Tim Scott had a conversation about this a while back.
I do think you can make a distinction between saying an entire country is racist versus saying that there have been individual people or moments of racism.
[06:20:07]
Where I think she is in trouble on this issue is, it's in her head now. The slavery thing was a real gaffe. To say that we've "never been a racist country" --
HARLOW: That's different than not.
JENNINGS: Obviously, the period after the Civil War, the rise of the Klan. I mean, we had massive bouts and rounds with racism.
Now, you know, her party, the Republican Party, was the party that started to dig us out of that in this country and to improve us every day, which she never actually says, DeSantis says it -- and I'm surprised at that, because that's part of our proud history as Republicans, the fight against slavery.
MATTINGLY: All that struggle.
ALFORD: Can I just say something, though? I mean, we talk about this as if it is the past. We are looking at -- we've covered stories where people have died, have been killed because of racism.
Jacksonville, Florida. The Dollar Tree shooting. I mean, this is happening right now.
And this is not just the black community, right? The Japanese internment. I mean, those families and descendants are still here.
My last name is Alford, not because my family chose that last name. That is the name of the slave-holding family that owned us. I know the plantation that we are from in South Carolina, and I am here.
My father de-segregated a school. He remembers those things.
So why do we have to talk about it as if it is past? This is right now. The pain is real. The survivors of racism, we are here, right? And so if you don't have a message around that, that talks about the future, that talks about the present, you cannot lead this country.
JENNINGS: Well, Republicans do have a message around it.
ALFORD: It's to ignore it! It's to say --
JENNINGS: No.
ALFORD: -- that we are color blind, which does not solve the problem.
JENNINGS: But it is to say that we are undoubtedly a better and stronger nation on this front today than we were 10, 20, 40, 50, 150, 180 years ago. We are undoubtedly better as an American people than we ever have been. And that will be true again tomorrow. And that is --
ALFORD: But why is that? Why is that? It's not because we ignored it. It's because people called out what was uncomfortable and they challenged the status quo. And they said, we need to live up to what the American dream actually is.
Those were the people who were demonized. We just celebrated Martin Luther King. Martin Luther King was killed. He was killed. He was not considered a favorite or a darling of America because he stood up against racism, against poverty.
And actually, the greatest threat was that he was uniting poor white people, right, with poor people of color. That was the greatest threat to America, was that he was willing to bring us together.
So, again, we have to move past talking about this as if it is history, as if it's not happening right now. And when the Republican Party does this color-blind thing, you're gaslighting people. And they're going to react to that, and they're going to show it at the polls.
ROSE: You know, the problem is, it's not what you just said, right? I mean, that's a message centered around patriotism and opportunity and equity.
The problem is, is that there is no leader currently in the Republican Party vying for the presidency who is saying what you just said. I mean, to openly deny that America has ever been a racist country.
You know, every politician has ticks that were developed from their start in politics. And clearly, what Nikki Haley saw in South Carolina 20 years ago as a person of color, she had to say things like this in order to advance early on in her career.
That, in and of itself, is such a great tragedy. But right now, it's not just horrendous what she's saying, but it's politically stupid.
I can't think of one Republican primary voter who is like, you know, I was with Trump, but then Nikki Haley said that we were never a racist country, so now I'm with her.
If -- the smart thing for her to do is to focus in on these independent, moderate voters, and try to gain some momentum out of New Hampshire. That is her only hope.
But then, of course, she still goes into South Carolina, her home state, where she is trailing Trump by 35 points. This primary, unfortunately, is just about over.
JENNINGS: You do raise an interesting point about the audience in New Hampshire. She needs non-Republicans, basically, to come into this primary.
And so how she addresses these kinds of topics, how she addresses topics that a non-Republican audience is listening to is going to determine whether she can actually get close to him or not. I'm not sure it's going well --
HARLOW: Because undeclared voters could be helpful.
JENNINGS: Yes, they could come right in. Not Democrats, but undeclared in New Hampshire could come in.
HARLOW: Yes.
JENNINGS: And people who say, Well, I don't want Trump anymore, I want to move the Republican Party past Trump, well, you know, you can't give answers to questions that make them say, well, you sound like Trump.
Because then they have no reason to come in and -- look, this is what -- this is what Chris Christie was saying on the hot mic the other day.
HARLOW: Interesting.
JENNINGS: I mean, this is basically why he was saying, she's not up to this, because she can't paint the clear choice for the actual non- Republican or anti-Trump voter. This is the tightrope she's on.
ALFORD: And it's also why DeSantis is not up to it, as well. Too close to Trump.
HARLOW: Thank you, guys, very much for this important conversation. Appreciate it.
MATTINGLY: Well, a bipartisan group of lawmakers just released a $78 billion tax package that would expand the child tax credit. Passing it, however, could be a problem.
HARLOW: And a deal has been struck between Hamas, the terror group, and Israel, with the help of Qatar, to allow medicine to reach those Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza.
[06:25:09]
We'll tell you what the details are, ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) HARLOW: An Ohio mayor is calling for an independent investigation this morning after police executed a raid at what the owners of the property say was the wrong house.
A mother and her 17-month-old baby, who has a pre-existing medical condition and was on a ventilator at the time of the raid, they were inside when police deployed flash bangs in the home.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police search warrant! Come to the door! Police search warrant! Come to the door!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dogs! Dogs!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police search warrant!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Coming down the stairs!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: The mayor of Elyria, Ohio, released this body-cam video of the incident. Another angle from a different officer shows the moment they entered the home, and you can hear the woman inside scream. We want to warn you, this is difficult to listen to and watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police search warrant!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Coming down the stairs!
(WOMAN SCREAMING)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come to the door!
COURTNEY PRICE, ARRESTED AFTER POLICE RAID AT WRONG HOUSE: My baby is right here! My baby!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come to the door.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just come down to us.
PRICE: No shots. I'm with my baby.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come outside.
PRICE: My baby's on a ventilator in there.
I didn't know what to do, because there was guns pointed at me. I wanted to run to him, but I knew if I ran to him, I -- they could have shot. They drug me out of the house, put me in handcuffs. I kept screaming, my baby, my baby is on a ventilator.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[06:30:00]
