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CNN Poll: Trump Leads Haley by Double Digits in NH; Significantly Warmer Temps to Replace Arctic Chill. Aired 6-6:30a ET
Aired January 22, 2024 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Morning, everyone! So glad you are with us on a beautiful Monday morning here.
[06:00:48]
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: And a beautiful diner here.
HARLOW: And this is out of central casting. I'm Poppy Harlow, Phil Mattingly. We are in MaryAnn's Diner in Amherst, New Hampshire. We're so grateful that they let us in even before they opened, because it's kind of a big week here.
MATTINGLY: And grateful they had coffee ready.
HARLOW: Yes, they did. A big shake-up ahead of tomorrow's primary here in New Hampshire; Ron DeSantis bowing out, hopping on the Trump train. How his supporters feel about going along for the ride.
MATTINGLY: Nikki Haley sharpening her attacks on the former president, going after Trump's age, his mental fitness after he confused her with Nancy Pelosi.
Today Trump is back in New York City -- in a New York City courtroom by day and coming back to campaign by night. Will Trump take the stand in the E. Jean Carroll defamation trial? We'll try and figure it out.
CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.
HARLOW: All right. Let's take a look at where we stand by the numbers. This is now a one-on-one race, with everything hanging on New Hampshire.
The final countdown is on, some polls here opening in 18 hours. Donald Trump and Nikki Haley are the only two candidates left standing after Ron DeSantis dropped out late yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NIKKI HALEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We're going to make sure that we fight all the way until the last second.
I'll leave you with this. May the best woman win.
(END VIDEO CLIP) MATTINGLY: Four former rivals have now endorsed Donald Trump on a seemingly inevitable march to the Republican nomination. The latest, Ron DeSantis, who dropped out yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. RON DESANTIS (R), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We don't have a clear path to victory. Accordingly, I am today suspending my campaign.
It's clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: Three candidates have now called it quits after Trump's landslide victory in Iowa, just last week. Today, Haley is blitzing New Hampshire with five campaign stops.
And Trump is once again spending the day in a courthouse in New York City, before heading back to the Granite State for a rally tonight.
Now, Haley is looking off to -- looking to pull off pretty much the equivalent of a political miracle in New Hampshire. A CNN poll shows Trump widening his lead to 11 points.
Omar Jimenez starts us off this morning live in Manchester, New Hampshire. Omar, this is it. It's all on the line for Nikki Haley. What do we expect?
OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It really is. What we've got, one less candidate in this race, but the super PAC supporting Ron DeSantis still has its bus here in New Hampshire. A reminder of the campaign that was. It's running, so it, too, may get out of town soon.
But really, at this point, the question is, with -- with the stage set, with just these two candidates, a day before the primary, what message will New Hampshire voters send?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you, New Hampshire!
JIMENEZ (voice-over): It's officially a two-person race for the Republican presidential nomination, with only a day to go until New Hampshire votes.
HALEY: It's now one fellow and one lady left.
JIMENEZ (voice-over): Nikki Haley is now the only Republican left challenging former President Donald Trump, after this announcement Sunday from Ron DeSantis.
DESANTIS: If there was anything I could do to produce a favorable outcome -- more campaign stops, more interviews -- I would do it. But I can't ask our supporters to volunteer their time and donate their resources if we don't have a clear path to victory. Accordingly, I am today suspending my campaign.
JIMENEZ (voice-over): It's an incredible fall for the Florida governor, who had both money and momentum early in the race. Now he's wasting no time in backing Donald Trump.
DESANTIS: Trump is superior to the current incumbent, Joe Biden. That is clear. I signed a pledge to support the Republican nominee, and I will honor that pledge.
JIMENEZ (voice-over): With that endorsement, Donald Trump is now thanking the man he attacked relentlessly for months.
TRUMP: He ran a really good campaign, I will tell you. It's not easy. They think it's easy doing this stuff, right? It's not easy. He was very gracious, and he endorsed me, so I appreciate it.
JIMENEZ (voice-over): On the trail in New Hampshire, Donald Trump is aiming to deliver a knockout punch to his former U.N. ambassador.
TRUMP: Nikki Haley, I know her well.
[06:05:05]
She's made an unholy alliance with the RINOs, the never-Trumpers, Americans for no prosperity, globalists, the radical left communists, and they want to get liberals and Biden supporters.
JIMENEZ (voice-over): Meanwhile, Haley is doubling down on attacking Trump's mental fitness.
HALEY: He claimed that Joe Biden was going to get us into World War II. I'm assuming he meant World War III.
He said that he ran against President Obama. He never ran against President Obama.
Don't be surprised, if you have someone that's 80 in office, their mental stability is going to continue to decline.
JIMENEZ (voice-over): Both Trump and Haley will be on the ground in the Granite State again today, battling for votes. Haley will hold five campaign events after a new CNN poll shows she has 39 percent support among likely Republican primary voters in New Hampshire, compared to Trump's 50 percent.
Still, she says, she's in it to win it.
DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: It's you and Donald Trump. So if it's not you -- I know you hope it will be, and you're working so that it is -- but if it's not, if it's Donald Trump, will you support him as the nominee still?
HALEY: It's going to be me. And I know y'all want to talk about it like it's still him. Seventy percent of Americans don't want to see a Trump/Biden rematch.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JIMENEZ: And that's a lot of what she's been running on. You hear it at just about every campaign stop, that, yes, over recent days, she's been more poignant in her remarks at Donald Trump specifically.
But a lot of her criticism has included both the former president and the current one, saying if they weren't both equally bad, she wouldn't be running in this race.
Now, after Iowa, she said it was a two-person race. She got that reality. But with Ron DeSantis out, the question is, does her path become any easier against the mountain that has been former President Trump throughout these -- this election season?
HARLOW: We'll watch. Omar, see you soon. Thank you very much.
MATTINGLY: And joining us now to discuss, CNN senior political analyst and senior editor at "the Atlantic," Ron Brownstein; and "Semafor" reporter Shelby Talcott.
Guys, we're going to have a lot to talk about with Ron DeSantis and him dropping out of the race in a little bit. I want to focus, kind of spin this forward. What are we looking at in the next 24 hours?
And that is, Nikki Haley wanted a one-on-one race. Nikki Haley has a one-on-one race. Shelby, you're talking to -- to voters and political hands constantly. Do they feel like this is a moment for her?
SHELBY TALCOTT, REPORTER, "SEMAFOR": Well, Nikki Haley's team certainly does. I think the problem that I've heard from other campaigns, former campaigns, people on the ground here, is that Nikki Haley's really focused her pitch here on those undecided voters.
And the problem is, she needs to, A, turn those out in record numbers; and B, also get Republican voters on board.
And the second thing is where she's really having problems. Because it does seem like Donald Trump has locked up a significant portion of the Republican base here in New Hampshire.
And when I talk to Trump's team, particularly after yesterday, with Ron DeSantis dropping out and endorsing, they're having a good few days here in New Hampshire, is what I'll say.
HARLOW: A couple of things. There are often surprises in this state.
RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: There are.
HARLOW: You win the independent vote here, undeclared, you win New Hampshire, generally. Ish.
BROWNSTEIN: Ish. It depends on the margin among -- among Republicans. Yes.
HARLOW: You have a really fascinating new piece out, talking about Nikki Haley weighing every word here. BROWNSTEIN: Yes, yes.
HARLOW: Is it time for her to stop weighing her words on Trump?
BROWNSTEIN: This was the week. I mean --
HARLOW: It's passed?
BROWNSTEIN: Well, you know, leaving Iowa on Monday night, she advanced her message, significantly. And she had one line in particular: "I am the last best hope of preventing this rematch that 70 percent of Americans don't want."
And that message has sort of been there around the edges here, but it really hasn't been a clarion call. And you know, I'm still surprised that I haven't seen her to camera, on television, you know, driving that message to New Hampshire undeclared voters.
Because what happened to her in Iowa, she's at risk of happening again. The reason she fell to third in Iowa was the places where she did best, those suburban and urban areas, lots of white-collar voters, as David Kotchel (ph) said, the people with heated garages, they didn't turn out in anywhere near the numbers she needed.
And I think the risk for her is that, by being so nuanced and so muffled in her criticism of Trump, where she will go after him on some things, but not really express any value adjustments about him, she faces the same risk here.
I mean, that undeclared voters who are, you know, by and large hostile to Trump, won't feel motivated to come out, because, you know, as you were saying, Trump has a big lead among Republicans. She needs a big -- she not only needs a big lead among independent voters, she needs a big turnout, and I'm not sure she's giving them enough fuel to generate that.
MATTINGLY: Coming out of Iowa, Ambassador Haley was really focused on tying Trump and Biden together. Right? And then Trump kind of gave her a gift, when the headlines kept saying he appeared to confuse Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi -- no, he straight-up confused Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi on who controlled security on January 6th.
This was how Haley responded to it. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HALEY: And he's going on and on, mentioning me multiple times as to why I didn't take security during the Capitol riots. Why I didn't handle January 6th better.
[06:10:15]
We can't have someone else that we question whether they're mentally fit to do this.
When you're 80, that's what happens. You're just not as sharp as you used to be.
There is a decline. And this is the situation where our country is very vulnerable right now. And we can't just have four years -- we've got to have eight years of somebody that's on it all the time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: It's sharp; it's new. Is it enough?
TALCOTT: Yes, that's the ultimate question. And I think it's really interesting, because so far, this criticism has been what we've heard from the Biden campaign. And they've sort of tried to level the playing field with Biden's own, you know -- concerns about Biden's own age and mental fitness.
So for months now, the Biden campaign has been pointing out every gaffe and misspeak that Trump has made, and now it's sort of making its way into Republican circles.
I'm not convinced a week out that this is going to change any voters' minds. When I talk to people on the ground who like Trump, they fundamentally believe that there is a difference between Donald Trump and Joe Biden with age and mental fitness.
What I do think it could affect is the general election. If Donald Trump does become the nominee, this has now become a more mainstream argument.
BROWNSTEIN: And it turns out that Donald Trump was more of an incumbent running for re-election than the other campaigns kind of understood.
MATTINGLY: Such a good point.
BROWNSTEIN: I was talking to the Republican pollster Whit Ayres last week, who said, jokingly, you know, if we want to understand what's happening now, we really should look at the exit polls from 1892.
Now, obviously, there were not -- there were not exit polls --
MATTINGLY: Just off the top of his head. Now.
BROWNSTEIN: Because it's the only one, right? Grover Cleveland was --
MATTINGLY: Just straight up.
BROWNSTEIN: Grover Cleveland was elected president in 1884, lost to Benjamin Harris, the Republican, in 1888. Came back, won the Democratic nomination again in 1892, and ultimately beat him. That's the only of that consequence that we've had before.
And -- and Whit's point, you know, somewhat amusingly, was that for a lot of Republican voters, this -- you know, this is more like Buchanan against George H.W. Bush than it is like McCain and Forbes against George W. Bush. It's not just an even playing field. For the -- as you were saying, the Republican voters who were
satisfied with his presidency -- I've talked to a number of them, you know, here, Trump voters, and I asked, was there any point along the way when you considered anyone else? And almost universally, they said, "No".
HARLOW: Yes.
MATTINGLY: All right, guys, stay with us. We have a lot more to get to, including the former top Republican who is definitely going to be the next person, is no longer in the race. We're going to get into it.
It started with so much promise. It ended with a thud. That might be a polite way of putting it. Why Ron DeSantis had to suspend his campaign.
HARLOW: Also overnight, new information about the fate of two missing Navy SEALs. We have an update, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:16:39]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: He said, will I be using the name Ron DeSanctimonious. I said, that name is officially retired!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: That is Donald Trump telling supporters in New Hampshire that he will officially retire his nickname for Ron DeSantis. This is after the Florida governor announced that he was dropping out of the race and endorsing Trump.
MATTINGLY: The Republican presidential field now has just two candidates, Trump and Nikki Haley, with the New Hampshire primary barely 24 hours from now. It is all in on a one-on-one race.
Ron Brownstein, Shelby Talcott are back with us.
That race is what we're focused on and should be focused on. But the fact that Ron DeSantis, who is the second coming, had "The New York Post" front page --
HARLOW: The future.
MATTINGLY: -- "The Future," had hundreds of millions of dollars, had the infrastructure, had the organization, had the message, he thought, and couldn't even make it to the second contest. Why, Ron?
BROWNSTEIN: You know, there were a lot of problems of execution, but in the end, I think it was more a problem of conception of the campaign was flawed.
You know, obviously, they had all sorts of turmoil in their structure, and he started off as a very awkward and kind of stilted candidate, who did not interact with, you know, other humans well. He got better.
HARLOW: He got ousted on X, literally, like --
BROWNSTEIN: It was a disaster, right. But I think the fundamental problem was, his theory of the case was wrong. Their theory of the case was wrong. Which was that they would try to run at Trump primarily from the right, crack his support among the MAGA base, and then, if he was the last person standing, the voters in the center, who really didn't like a lot of what he was saying, would have no choice but to rally around him, because he was the only way to stop Trump.
He ended up with the worst of both worlds. If you saw the Iowa entrance poll, he only won 11 percent of voters who said they identify with the MAGA movement, and then among those who didn't, he lost to Haley. He left the room for Haley in the center of the party to emerge.
So I think, you know, he got better as a candidate, but the basic theory was, you had Trump as this Mack truck rolling down the right lane of American politics. All of this room on the other side of him, and DeSantis was trying to squeeze by on the shoulder. And it just didn't work.
HARLOW: I would say he was in the left lane, because that's where you go the fastest.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes. The right -- I have to put Trump in the right, though.
HARLOW: Fair enough. Yes, fair, I hear you.
Eight days ago, this is Ron DeSantis eight days ago. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DESANTIS (via phone): I came in not really doing as much media. I should have just been blanketing. I should have gone on all the corporate shows. I should have gone on everything. I started doing that as we got --
DESANTIS: He's running a campaign about putting himself and his issues first. That's what he cares about. You can be the most worthless Republican in America, but if you kiss the ring, he'll say, you're wonderful.
You can be the strongest, most dynamic, successful Republican and conservative in America, but if you don't kiss that ring, then he'll try to trash you.
You know what? You deserve a nominee that's going to put you first, not himself first.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: Eight days ago. And now an endorsement. He's out and an endorsement for Trump.
TALCOTT: Yes, I mean, I think -- I think the thing with this is it sort of felt inevitable, particularly within the last few days. I think the -- the common thinking on the ground here among politicos was, well, he's certainly not going to endorse Nikki Haley at this point.
[06:20:06]
But it is interesting. And I think it just goes back to the reality that Donald Trump still has this, you know, ultimate hold over the Republican Party. And people at the end of the day end up endorsing him, and end up stepping aside.
And that's what we've seen time and time again throughout this entire primary contest. And we will most likely continue to see it.
BROWNSTEIN: You know what Trump said yesterday about DeSantis validated what DeSantis said about Trump, eight days ago. It was, you know, like day and night. You know, he's Ron DeSanctimonious. He's a failed governor. He never would have won without me.
Oh, he's a great guy. He ran a great campaign. It is -- we're watching something like a medieval court or maybe, you know, a crime family where, you know, loyalty and subservience to the chief is the -- is the one measure of kind of validity within -- within the party.
And that, I think, is the biggest risk to Haley out of this. DeSantis's support in New Hampshire and South Carolina has dwindled to the point where, even if more of his voters go to Trump than Haley, that's not like a big -- the problem is more sending -- reinforcing the signal that the party is closing ranks and wants to shut this down, much like what happened with Joe Biden in March 2020 after South Carolina, when everybody kind of came together and voters got the message. And that's, I think, the biggest risk to her.
MATTINGLY: Shelby, one thing that I've been trying to figure out over the course of the last month or so, you could see when the first indictment came from the New York D.A., if you look at the polling, the divergence between DeSantis and Trump that starts there. And it's very clear. And I'm not saying that's the only reason.
But given that and how the party kind of coalesced after the first indictment, was there ever a path for anyone but Trump as we entered into this primary season?
TALCOTT: Yes, I mean, again, you can name 20-plus things that Ron DeSantis did wrong with his presidential campaign that were, you know, his fault or his campaign's fault.
But at the end of the day, the indictments were also a major thing. And I think probably the biggest thing that has impeded any other presidential candidate running against Trump from being successful.
Every time these indictments happened, Trump's support grew, his support hardened, and there was really no way -- nobody has figured out a winning strategy for combatting that, if there even is one.
So yes, I think in a way, no matter what any presidential candidate does, these indictments have really strengthened Trump, potentially, to the point where it -- you know, it really doesn't matter. Is there even a contest?
BROWNSTEIN: You know, the other thing is that there is this giant rock in the road, in the middle of the Republican primary, which is Trump's hold on non-college and non-urban voters.
So he won two-thirds of non-college voters in Iowa. He dominated rural areas. You can run -- try to run around that rock mostly to the right, as DeSantis did, or you can run around that rock mostly to the left and center, as Haley is doing.
But either way, there's just not enough on either side to overcome that dominance, particularly because Trump is reshaping the party. And those non-college voters are probably a bigger share of the vote this year than they were in 2016.
HARLOW: Especially as Trump is doing better this time around also with college-educated voters than he was before.
BROWNSTEIN: He's doing better with everybody.
HARLOW: Everyone. Literally every Democrat.
BROWNSTEIN: Again, it goes back to what Whit was saying. You know, he's an incumbent president now if -- in the eyes of many Republicans.
And his -- you know, the Trump campaign, when I talked to them, they say, look, that is the core -- the core thing is that 75 percent of Republicans approve of the job he did.
And if, you know, if that's the situation, you don't expect Bill Clinton to be defeated for re-nomination in 1996 or W. to be the -- you know, it's like -- it's more like that than it appeared to the others and even to us at the outset.
HARLOW: Stick around, guys. We'll talk to you in a little bit.
We have a lot more ahead on the program, including this. It was freezing, very freezing, for caucus goers in Iowa. It is balmy here, in my opinion, in New Hampshire. But voters here may face their own challenges with some of the weather tomorrow.
MATTINGLY: A little Minnesota bias, if you ask me. And the Biden campaign planning to put the fight for reproductive rights front and center in the 2024 race. Their plans to use Vice President Kamala Harris to directly take on Donald Trump. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:28:04]
MATTINGLY: After a ten-day search, U.S. Central Command has declared two missing U.S. Navy SEALs are dead.
They were boarding a vessel off the coast of Somalia when one fell into the water due to 8-foot swells and the second jumped in after him.
CentCom has not released information about what the mission the sailors were on was, but CNN has reported that they boarded a vessel searching for Iranian weapons.
CentCom's commanders released a statement saying, in part, quote, "We mourn the loss of our two Naval Special Warfare warriors, and we will forever honor their sacrifice and example."
MATTINGLY: Also this. Officials say that U.S. personnel are injured after a ballistic missile attack Saturday at al-Asad Air Base in Iraq. Central Command says that, quote, "A number of personnel are being evaluated for traumatic brain injuries."
An Iranian-backed militia group claimed responsibility for this attack. And this comes as tension continues to grow in the region around the Israel/Hamas war.
And since this began on October 7th, U.S. and coalition forces have come under attack more than 143 times in both Iraq and Syria.
MATTINGLY: Well, we're going to feel much warmer temperatures over the next several days. That will be welcome news to a lot of people -- including Jason Kelce, who likes to go around shirtless in Buffalo -- after deadly winter storms and an arctic blast tragically left more than 82 people dead in a dozen states earlier this month.
Daily highs are expected to go up about 30 degrees in some regions, with heavy rain and potentially flooding from the burst of tropical moisture. New Hampshire, where we are, also could get some more snow on primary day.
Meteorologist Derek van Dam is tracking all of it for us. Dere, what are we looking at this week?
DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Jason Kelce will be very, very impressed with this weather forecast. It's going to warm up. He can be shirtless all day long if he wants to be.
But the average temperatures, above average temperatures are moving to the Eastern half of the U.S. And this is a far cry, a walk in the park compared to what voters had to deal with last week at the Iowa caucuses.
Here in Amherst, where Poppy and Phil are currently located, temperatures in the upper 30s today, more of the same for tomorrow.
Notice the afternoon or evening snow showers in the forecast. The Northern half of the state may be dropping below freezing. The Southern half should remain at or just above freezing.
[06:30:00]
