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CNN This Morning

Rep. Johnson Won't Commit to Putting Migration Deal on the House Floor; Interview with Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE); Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump Campaigns in New Hampshire Ahead of First in Nation Republican Primary; Justice Department to Release Its Review of Uvalde School Shooting Where 19 Children and Two Teachers were Killed Inside Robb Elementary. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired January 18, 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]

ELISA RAFFA, CNN WEATHER ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: -- see this much snow in such a short amount of time. And this is their second round of it. If we look at the ice extent on the Great Lake, it is well below average for this time of year. Typically, we would see about 20 percent of ice coverage. We're only at about eight, and that's what fuels the snow as it continues through the day today, guys.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Elisa Raffa, thank you very much. Welcome to CNN, we're so happy to have you here on CNN THIS MORNING. Thank you.

RAFFA: Thank you.

HARLOW: And we continue right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Nikki Haley is counting on Democrats and liberals to infiltrate your Republican primary. By the way, what's that all about? A vote for Nikki Haley this Tuesday is a vote for Joe Biden and a Democrat Congress this November because that's what's going to happen.

NIKKI HALEY, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I know Trump threw a temper tantrum about me last night. I heard that. And I've seen the commercials. This is the chance to say, do we want more of the same or do we want to go forward? We don't want more of the same with the Trump-Biden thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: The attacks are flying in New Hampshire ahead of the primary on Tuesday. Nikki Haley, Donald Trump trading shots in the granite state last night while Ron DeSantis shifts his focus to the next race in South Carolina. Can Haley break into Trump's commanding lead?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: And today the Justice Department will release its long-awaited review of the law enforcement response to the 2022 shooting in Uvalde, Texas. That attack left 19 children and two teachers dead at Robb Elementary School. In just a moment, we will talk to Texas state senator that represents the district.

HARLOW: Also, a prosecutor investigating this attack on the television station in Ecuador last week gunned down in broad daylight. The country's attorney general says she will press ahead in this crackdown there on organized crime. We have a live report from Ecuador straight ahead.

This hour of CNN THIS MORNING starts now.

Just five days to go until the New Hampshire primary, and it is quickly turning into a two-candidate battle. Tonight, Nikki Haley takes questions in a CNN town hall in New Hampshire. It comes as Donald Trump focuses his attacks on her. And Ron DeSantis seems to be giving up on his chances in the state. Trump is seeking a knockout blow on Tuesday. He's now co-opting Haley's electability message and claiming he's the only one who can beat President Biden in November. The clock is ticking down for Haley to stop Trump's seemingly inevitable march to the nomination.

MATTINGLY: And that clock underscoring why anxious Republicans are urging Nikki Haley and her campaign to escalate her attacks on the frontrunner, be more aggressive in these closing days. Last night at Haley's rally, Haley took a swipe at Trump's age.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIKKI HALEY, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The majority of Americans have said they don't want their options to be two 80-year-olds for president. We've got to move past that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Meanwhile, Ron DeSantis appears to be ceding New Hampshire in a last ditch effort to save his own campaign. Polling staff and resources out of the granite state sending them to South Carolina instead for next month's primary. DeSantis's super PAC, the super PAC supporting him laying off several of its people, scaling back plans to compete in New Hampshire and other Super Tuesday states. Trump now predicting DeSantis isn't going to be around much longer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: What the hell happened to Ron? Does anybody know what happened to -- I think I happened to Ron. I think he's going to be gone. I think all of those -- applause, that was funny. But I think you can probably save him for about a week or so, because I think he's going to be gone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: All right, we start with CNN's senior data reporter Harry Enten here with all the numbers. Explain why Trump is so unhappy, upset about the undeclareds? HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICS WRITER AND ANALYST: Why is Trump so

unhappy? I guess Trump always finds something to be unhappy about. But OK, take a look at our last poll from CNN, the choice for GOP nominee in New Hampshire with Christie and Ramaswamy voters reallocated to second choice. If you look among registered Republicans, look at this large advantage that Donald Trump has over Nikki Haley -- 63 percent to 24 percent.

But look among undeclareds. You see basically the inverse of that, right, where Nikki Haley's at 59 percent and Donald Trump's at 22 percent. So not really much of a surprise that he wants Republicans voting in this primary and not undeclareds. But here's the question, what is that all about Donald Trump keeps saying. What is that all about that you have these undeclareds potentially voting in the primary.

So I want to take you back through history a little bit. OK, this is New Hampshire GOP primary voters who aren't registered Republicans. This year according to our poll, it's going to be about 45 percent of the electorate that isn't registered Republicans. The question I had, Poppy, is how unusual is this? How unusual is this? Look back through history. In 2016, when Trump, of course, won New Hampshire, it was 40 percent. The last time there was no competitive -- really competitive Democratic primary, right, when there was a Democratic incumbent back in 2012, look at that, it was 47 percent. That is basically the same as we're seeing right now, 45 percent versus 47 percent. So the fact is what's going on in New Hampshire isn't all that unusual.

[08:05:02]

HARLOW: OK, so I had one other question. This would be then Democrats and undeclareds?

ENTEN: This would be registered undeclareds or those who register on the day of the primary.

HARLOW: OK, who register on the day of the primary. So as we move forward, we didn't hear him complain about it much in 2016, is that right?

ENTEN: Yes, we didn't hear him complain much about it in 2016. Why? Because he actually did better among registered undeclareds than he did among registered Republicans. So now, all of a sudden, the script has flipped, so he's changed his mind.

But here's the thing I would just note. Nationally, Trump is still so far ahead. So New Hampshire may just really be a bump in the road. He's complaining now. He's still probably going to win New Hampshire, but it will be closer, but the fact is Trump is still the heavy favorite regardless --

HARLOW: He wants to motivate his supporters to get out on Tuesday.

ENTEN: Yes.

HARLOW: Thank you, Harry, as always. Appreciate it. Phil? MATTINGLY: Later today, the Justice Department will release its review of the Uvalde school shooting where 19 children and two teachers were gunned down inside Robb Elementary. Since that day nearly 20 months ago, there have been questions about why it took 77 minutes to stop the gunman who opened fire in two adjoining classrooms as more than 370 law enforcement officers arrived at the scene. Attorney General Merrick Garland traveled to Uvalde yesterday where he met with local officials and family members of the victims ahead of today's release of the Justice Department's report.

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OSCAR ORONA, UVALDE SCHOOL SHOOTING VICTIM'S FATHER: The briefing that we received today was very positive. We look forward to seeing the report because we think it will validate a lot of our feelings already as to what transpired and what didn't transpire and what should have happened.

BERLINDA ARREOLA, UVALDE SCHOOL SHOOTING VICTIM'S GRANDMOTHER: There was a lot of information, and I guess the next step is to find out what will be done with this information.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Joining us now is Texas state senator who represents Uvalde, Roland Gutierrez. He's also running for the U.S. Senate seat against Ted Cruz, currently in the Democratic primary. Sir, we appreciate your time this morning. I want to start with, based on what we know up to this point, what do we expect to be in this report? What do we expect parents and families to be able to read here?

ROLAND GUTIERREZ, (D) TEXAS STATE SENATE: Yesterday I got a briefing -- thank you very much for the time, by the way. I got a briefing from the attorney general's office last night, and essentially it looks at everything from A to Z, 1,400 pieces, individual -- 14,000 individual pieces of evidence, 280 plus interviews of people on the ground, family members and so on.

I think that what we're going to see is everything that didn't happen and everything that was supposed to happen. There was tremendous error by state officials, by local officials on the ground. There was lapses in communication. There was failures of equipment. There was delays in getting equipment that they didn't need to begin with. There was miscommunication, post miscommunication by way of law enforcement. Even in interviews to the media, those inaccuracies and those misstatements caused confusion in the community. There was a lack of victims' coordination, if you will. Parents were told that their children were dead when they were indeed alive, and some were told that their children were alive when they were indeed dead.

There was a tremendous folly of errors that occurred on that day and on the days and weeks and months thereafter, things that I've seen and known about and talked about, but now finally we're getting some transparency and some light here so that people can see what happened.

HARLOW: So important for those families and so important for this country in preventing future responses like this. When you were with us just last year, you said to me, "I hope everybody in the United States understands the full effect of what happened in Uvalde and the full effect of how government has failed them in the state of Texas." Do you believe as far as you've been briefed on this report, that what it lays out in the sunshine on these issues, the transparency will prevent a response like this ever again in Texas or elsewhere?

GUTIERREZ: I think it's important to note that this is the worst law enforcement response to a school shooting in our nation's history, period. And we can't ever let this happen again. And there are policies that should be in place in Texas. Unfortunately, the policyholders in this state, the people that are controlling this state, Republican leaders both in the House and the Senate, and of course our leadership, have decided to create loose gun laws that allow anybody and everybody to access a weapon of this nature.

This young man was 18 years old. He bought a gun at a small town in Texas at the only gun shop in Texas on day one. The next day he bought 900 rounds of ammunition. And on the third day he picked up an AR-15 again, second AR-15. No one thought that that set of events was significant. In other states, that would have been considered possibly a red flag.

[08:10:00]

So it's my hope that we not only learn best practices, sure, going forward, but we have to change our policy. And if our policymakers aren't willing to create some changes, then we need to get rid of those policymakers.

MATTINGLY: To that point, you worked both on the legislative front but also with the families pushing legislation related to changes in gun laws, in gun policy in the wake of what happened in Uvalde. You ran into a lot of resistance. Do you feel like this will help those efforts moving forward, give you another chance to move forward on those issues in a state like Texas?

GUTIERREZ: I don't know what people need to see. The fact is after this horrible tragedy happened, even 70 percent of Republican voters were saying they needed to raise an age limit in Texas, you needed to have extreme risk and universal background checks. Maybe it wasn't the full-on assault weapons ban that I often talk about with certain exceptions, but the fact is Republican politicians just simply aren't listening in this state. They're not even listening to their own constituents that want change in this space.

Our children are growing up with a different kind of anxiety. These children die just like we tell them to, they shut the lights, close the door, they huddled in the corner, and in the end in that second classroom, you see two stacks of kids, two teachers trying to shield their children, one dead, one barely living. The second teacher died in a parking lot because the cops had surrounded all the arterial streets and the ambulance couldn't get to the hospital. We have to look at these tragedies and understand they don't happen in a vacuum and understand that things happen and cops make bad decisions, and sometimes cops are just plain cowardly. I've seen all of the videos. I've seen even the audio statements where cops are saying there's an AR-15 in there. There's an AR-15. I've even seen the audio tape and the videotape where one cop says I don't want to die today. Those children didn't want to die either.

HARLOW: Texas State Senator Roland Gutierrez, I'm so glad you're with us on such an important and meaningful day for the families. Thank you.

MATTINGLY: Happening today, an Israeli family will hold a public event marking the first birthday of the youngest hostage taken on October 7th. The family of Kfir Bibas is expected to make an impassioned plea for his release, as well as the release of his parents and brother. However, it's unclear whether the child is still alive. The Israel Defense Forces said in November that it was assessing a claim by Hamas's military arm that the infant was killed in an Israeli airstrike. CNN has not been able to confirm the deaths nor the claim of the airstrike.

HARLOW: House Speaker Mike Johnson pouring some cold water on the latest proposal on a border deal from the White House.

MATTINGLY: That also means any new aid to Ukraine is in real jeopardy. We're going to speak to close Biden ally Democratic Senator Chris Coons next about where things go from here. Stay with us.

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[08:16:17]

HARLOW: Well, this morning, the fate of an immigration deal is really up in the air. Congress attempting to do the nearly impossible, compromise on immigration.

Bipartisan negotiations are continuing in the Senate for a border deal that is tied to unlocking more funding for Israel and Ukraine. However, if that bill passes the Senate, its fate in the House is very uncertain.

Our Kaitlan Collins pressed House Speaker Mike Johnson on exactly that last night. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF CORRESPONDENT: You said the devil is in the details here, that you want to see what the Senate is offering, but then why did you tell the Republican conference in a call the other day that bill is dead on arrival in the House?

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): If the bill looks like some of the things that were rumored, of course it would be dead in the House, because it wouldn't solve the problem.

You can't just do pieces of this and leave for example, parole untouched, leave the current broken parole process untouched because it's a giant loophole that would allow all of these people to continue to come in. COLLINS: Will you still be able to say that the border is a crisis if

you rejected a deal that maybe doesn't do everything that you wanted, but does do some stuff to address the border?

JOHNSON: Kaitlan, you're asking me to address a hypothetical, I have no idea. It doesn't matter to me who votes for what --

COLLINS: But it's not a hypothetical. Because ...

JOHNSON: No, it is because we don't know what the text is.

COLLINS: ... the Senate is going to pass something soon they said.

You know the general outlines of it though.

JOHNSON: They said.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Kaitlan Collins is with us now. I love that exchange for a number of different reasons.

One, he is saying it's dead on arrival, based on text that now, he says, he doesn't have access to.

But two, it is not a hypothetical question because there are Senate Republicans, multiple high level Senate Republicans who have said it's not going to get better than this, unless we have 60 votes in the Senate, next cycle, it's just simply -- there's no better moment. What was your thought after you were done with that conversation?

COLLINS: I mean, Phil, you know how this works on the Hill, and to hear people like Senator McConnell and John Cornyn and John Thune come out and say, you know, we should take this. This is a good deal that they feel like they've got the White House on the ropes when it comes to having leverage here, that doesn't really happen that often, and they're clearly signaling to Mike Johnson.

So they had this meeting at the White House yesterday, and it's Chuck Schumer, President Biden, Mike Johnson, Hakeem Jeffries. Mike Johnson is on an island in that room. He is the only one who is kind of saying in his mind what the far-right in his party, the hard-liners, how they're going to respond to this bill.

And so, I think the issue that he finds himself in and where we may see the pressure really amp up on him in the coming days is the Senate is signaling that they are preparing to move on their immigration bill, and maybe we don't know exactly what's in it, but there are broad outlines that have pretty much stayed the same.

And so the question is, what does he do? He has not committed to putting it on the floor, but I do think it puts them in the issue of, you know, they are taking trips to the border, they are doing all of this.

If they don't take this compromise deal, if they say we'll do nothing instead, can they still continue to message on it the way that they have been?

HARLOW: And this is all tied to does the US send more funding to Ukraine and Israel. You asked him about Ukraine last night.

It is so interesting, you're like what did the president say in response? And he's like basically they all went around the table and said their own sort of thoughts. Here's part of your interview with him on Ukraine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNSON: We all oppose Vladimir Putin and the barbarism and the aggression that he has shown there, and he must be stopped, but what's happening in Ukraine right now, that status quo cannot be maintained. That's unacceptable.

We cannot spend billions of dollars without a clear strategy articulated and I told the president in the meeting today, again, as I've been saying repeatedly, sir, you have to articulate what the strategy is, what is the end game? What is the outcome of that that we're trying to achieve? And how will we have accountability for the dollars, the precious taxpayer dollars of the American people?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: To be fair, that is something that he has maintained. It has been his position, and he's been generally more positive about providing more funding for Ukraine than -- since he's become House Speaker than we've heard from a lot of Republicans.

[08:20:08]

And I do think, when you look at public polling, there is not the support that we used to see a year ago for Ukraine. It is like, I understand why he is asking those questions, but I actually was in the room and had the opportunity to ask those questions and I asked what answers he got, and he said, essentially that they just went around the room and all kind of did their talking points, and he did -- it wasn't an actual back and forth on the substance there.

HARLOW: Wasn't that surprising -- it was surprising to me listening to it.

COLLINS: You actually have the chance to ask --

HARLOW: This is your chance --

COLLINS: To ask the questions.

And you know, Jake Sullivan is in the room, the National Security adviser laying out what Ukraine needs, but I think what is going to be the heart of the issue for Speaker Johnson is even if he is okay with getting the Ukraine fund passed, people like Marjorie Taylor Greene say that if any Ukraine funding passes the House, she said she'd personally introduce the motion to oust him. And so, the question is, how he handles that, because she doesn't care

what the White House articulates. She just doesn't believe that any more funding for Ukraine should be passed, period.

MATTINGLY: We've got to go, but real quick, his thoughts on Trump. Because he's going to play a role, whether or not this moves forward. He truthed about it last night.

COLLINS: Trump doesn't think this -- we haven't even seen this bill, but Trump doesn't think the Senate immigration bill should pass.

But their relationship is interesting. He said they talk a lot. That they are talking about what they're hearing, what policy they're trying to pursue in the House if they could pursue anything, but they've had an interesting relationship because back in 2015, Mike Johnson, you know, congressman from Louisiana was not a fan of Trump's and posted that he didn't believe that he should be the nominee.

He did go on to endorse him, and of course we've seen how that relationship has evolved, just speaks to the power dynamics on Capitol Hill and the role that Trump is playing in what we're watching happen.

HARLOW: Kaitlan, thank you for getting up early. It was a really compelling interview. Appreciate it.

COLLINS: Thanks for having me.

MATTINGLY: And joining us now is one of President Biden's closest allies in Washington, Senator Chris Coons of Delaware. He is the co- chair of the Biden-Harris campaign, also a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

He just came back from a big trip as well talking to world leaders, top business people.

Senator, there is a lot I want to get to here, but I want to start with kind of what I thought was the biggest -- one of the biggest takeaways from Kaitlan's interview with the Speaker was, which is basically regardless of what comes out of a Senate bipartisan group working on immigration, I don't necessarily get the sense there's a path forward in the House.

SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-DE): Phil, our job first is to make sure that the government doesn't shut down. With a series of votes today, we will send to the House a continuing resolution to keep the government open. It is my hope the House will do the same.

The next job we have in front of us is to finalize this border security deal, which is very close to being done and to pass the supplemental that President Biden requested months ago.

Phil, every conversation, every meeting I was in in Europe, the first question was, will the United States continue to partner with 50 other countries who, in combination, are providing the funding, the support for Ukraine? For the first responders who put out the fires when Russian missiles strike power plants and hospitals, and for artillery shells and material and weapons support for the brave Ukrainians who are fighting on the frontlines.

I am optimistic, even confident that we will, but the politics of the House are concerning.

MATTINGLY: Was the second question after the question about Ukraine, is Donald Trump going to be president again?

COONS: Yes.

MATTINGLY: And what did you say to that?

MATTINGLY: No. I'm confident that Joe Biden will be re-elected, but this will be a difficult election.

There are many Americans on both sides of this debate, and frankly, Phil, one of my concerns is that President Biden in his first State of the Union asked Congress to fix our broken immigration system, to take up and pass policy changes, revisions to law that he needs in order to fully secure our border and make our immigration system more legal, humane, and just, and we've had some Republicans saying in recent days in the House, they don't want to fix the immigration system in advance of the election.

My hope is that the cooler heads will prevail in the Republican caucus, and those who have worked very hard here in the Senate, both Democrats and Republicans to give President Biden both the funding he has requested to secure the border and policy changes they say are essential that when we pass that in the Senate, the House will recognize. This country can't wait ten months more. This is urgent and we need to make progress on securing our border.

MATTINGLY: Do you think that Democrats, from a policy perspective, what they are willing to entertain, what they are willing to sign off on when it comes to restrictions relating to immigration, are in a different place than they were a year, two years ago, because of what happened at the border?

COONS: Yes, I think there is a willingness to reconsider, the initial screening standard for asylum, for example, because so many people are now using the asylum process who ultimately years later after a court review will be deemed ineligible for asylum. That is one of the biggest changes in recent years.

But there are many Democrats who question whether the policy changes demanded by Republicans will actually make a difference at the border. Most democrats would prefer a regional engagement that addresses the conditions in the countries folks are flowing from towards the United States in addition to changes in how we screen for asylum and in how we treat folks when they're being detained or deported here.

[08:25:22]

This has been a vigorous debate as long as I've been in the Senate. We have tried and tried and hopefully, the politics of the re-election campaign will not get in the way of our proving some path forward here does exist. MATTINGLY: A Senate agreement in and of itself would be, I mean,

something we haven't seen since the bipartisan bill back in, what? 2000 -- I've lost track of the last couple of decades, just you know better than anybody.

I do want to ask though --

COONS: Phil, it was 2013 when I was in the room, we passed a broad and strong and impressive ...

MATTINGLY: It got 65 votes if I recall correctly.

COONS: ... immigration bill and the House never took it up.

MATTINGLY: Right, and I think that's why -- where there is concern about whether House Republicans will act, it does seem to be merited based on history. John Boehner, obviously, a very different speaker of the House even Mike Johnson, ideologically.

I do want to ask on other foreign policy issues, because there is a lot going on right now. The fourth U.S. strikes in Yemen targeting Houthi rebels. The biggest question that I have given, one, the reticence of the administration to take this action until just a couple of weeks ago or a week ago is -- what is the end game here?

COONS: Well, President Biden and his National Security team are correctly working tirelessly since the October 7th Hamas attacks on innocent civilians in Israel to deter Iran.

I'll remind you, Iran is the regional source of all this violence and all these challenges because they are the folks who train and support and help fund the Houthis, Hamas, Hezbollah, the militias that have been striking American targets in Iraq and in Syria. It is Iran that most needs to be deterred.

President Biden and his team took a disciplined, thoughtful approach to these Houthi attacks of drones and missiles on ships. They went to the UN Security Council and got a resolution. They got 11 other countries to sign up to share the burden of the naval interception.

They warned the Houthis. They took modest initial actions, then they took more aggressive strikes. In the last two strikes, we've been hitting -- our forces have been hitting Houthi launchers as they are about to strike ships.

So my hope is that we will find a way to deter Iran, but for the intermediate term, it is going to require more action to prevent the Houthis from striking shipping. A huge percentage of global commerce goes through the Red Sea.

MATTINGLY: Right.

COONS: And we're going to begin to see impacts if every ship that's going from Asia to Europe has to go around the very south of Africa.

MATTINGLY: Certainly a cascading effect on the global economy. Senator Chris Coons, always appreciate your time, sir. Thank you.

HARLOW: A prosecutor investigating Ecuador's surge in organized crime over the last month, that prosecutor shot and killed in broad daylight. We have a live report on the ground ahead.

MATTINGLY: And the Princess of Wales hospitalized for the next two weeks as King Charles prepares to check in to the hospital next week.

The outpouring of concern for the Royals. That's ahead.

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