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CNN This Morning
Trump Wins New Hampshire, Haley Vows To Stay In Race; Russian Media: Plane Carrying 74 People Including 65 Ukrainian POWs, Crashes In Russia. Aired 5-5:30a ET
Aired January 24, 2024 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:00:45]
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, everyone. Glad you are with us bright and early.
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: And early.
HARLOW: I'm Poppy Harlow with Phil Mattingly in New York.
Kasie Hunt joining us live again from New Hampshire where Donald Trump has cruised to yet another victory on his march to the Republican nomination.
It is a victory that Haley not only knowledge, but did congratulate Trump as she vowed to stay in this race through the primary in her home state of South Carolina
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NIKKI HALEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I want to congratulate Donald Trump on his victory tonight. He earned it.
New Hampshire is first in the nation. It is not the last in the nation.
(CHEERS)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: That congratulations and the acknowledgment of reality not enough to appease the front runner who had this to say about Haley deciding to stay in the race.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT: Who the hell was the impostor that went up on the stage before and like claimed a victory? She did very poorly actually. She had to win.
I find in life, you can't let people get away with bullshit, okay? You can't. You just can't do that.
And when I watched her, the fancy dress that probably wasn't so fancy, come up, I said, what's she doing?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: Criticizing ones fashion and back to like you want and if you didn't. What a weird --
HARLOW: I like the dress.
MATTINGLY: -- idea.
Trump called her impostor, said he doesn't get angry. He gets even.
So much for that message of unity.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I really think this is time now for everybody, our country to come together.
I want to congratulate Ron and Nikki.
They are very smart, very smart people, very capable people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: That was so last week, goodness.
And while Trump did win last night, the exit polls did underscore the warning signs Haley spent weeks trying to highlight.
He does have a strong grip on the Republican Party, no question about that, but a glaring weakness among independents and suburban voters in particular.
Omar Jimenez is live for us in Manchester, New Hampshire.
Omar, Haley's next goal, trying to wrestle her home state away from Trump, that primary is one month out. Where do things stand?
OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. Well, look, for starters, election night always comes and goes so fast, and you played a lot of that audio there, Donald Trump wasted no time telling Nikki Haley essentially this primary process is over after winning his the second state in a row. That said, Nikki Haley wanted a two-person race. She got it. And despite the results here, she says she isn't going anywhere.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JIMENEZ (voice-over): Former President Trump, victorious in New Hampshire.
(CROWD CHANTING "USA")
JIMENEZ: Paving the way for him to clinch the Republican nomination for the third time. TRUMP: When you win Iowa and you win New Hampshire, they've never had a loss. There's never been. So we're not going to be first.
JIMENEZ: His sole rival, Nikki Haley, remains optimistic and vows to stay in the race.
HALEY: New Hampshire is first in the nation. It is not the last in the nation.
This race is far from over.
JIMENEZ: Haley is still trying to convince Republicans that a shift away from Trump is the best path to victory in November.
HALEY: A Trump nomination is a Biden win and a Kamala Harris presidency. The first party to retire its 80-year-old candidate is going to be the party that wins this election.
JIMENEZ: Trump responded during his victory speech lashing out at Haley, criticizing her for staying in the race.
TRUMP: I don't get angry, I get even. We have to do what's good for our party and she was up and I said, wow, she's doing like a speech like she won. She didn't win. She lost.
JIMENEZ: Haley is now looking ahead to her home state of South Carolina. But her path for the nomination is challenging after losses in the first two voting states.
SEN. TIM SCOTT (R-SC): This election is over. It is time for the Republican Party to coalesce around our nominee.
JIMENEZ: The former president also touted his endorsement from South Carolina's Senator Tim Scott.
TRUMP: You must really hate her. No, it's a shame. Uh-oh.
SCOTT: I just love you.
JIMENEZ: Trump now wants to focus on his rematch with President Biden.
[05:05:03]
TRUMP: If we don't win, I think our country is finished. I do.
JIMENEZ: Biden won the Democratic primary in New Hampshire overwhelmingly as a write-in candidate and says it's clear Trump will be the Republican nominee.
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I believe 2024 is going to be the most important election we've had since 1863. I mean it. And the reasons are clear. Democracy is on the ballot.
JIMENEZ: Biden is campaigning on abortion rights and sharpening his message against Trump. BIDEN: I don't think that this court and MAGA Republicans have any
clue about the power of women in America. I don't think they have any clue. But they are about to find out.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JIMENEZ (on camera): Now, through all of this, Nikki Haley has maintained she is the best person to take on Joe Biden. But after winning two states in a row, Trump is not buying that at all.
The next primary, of course, is in Nikki's home state of South Carolina where her team is already spending $4 million on ads to try and propel her campaign. But that primary is on February 24th. So, we got a long way to go until then. On one hand, it's a long time to start building momentum, but on the other, it's also a good bit of time to figure out if any potential lack of path forward is clear.
HARLOW: Yeah, it can certainly cut both ways to have that much time.
Omar, thank you very much.
Let's bring in "EARLY START" anchor, CNN chief national affairs analyst, Kasie Hunt. She is in New Hampshire again this morning.
Good morning to you.
I wonder what Haley's team makes of Trump's speech. And I'll say it again, it was a nice dress, but -- I mean, to Phil's more serious point, total shift in tone from Trump last week to this week on her.
KASIE HUNT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Yeah. Hi, Poppy, good morning. Good morning to you also, Phil.
This -- look, Haley's team viewed this, and I was talking to multiple aides and supporters of hers right after speech gave the speech, they viewed the speech as a gift to her. They called it weird, they called it angry, and as I was speaking to them. And it really I think showed you how much both her speech kind of her attitude toward all of this really seemed to get under Donald Trump's skin. It was a dramatic change in tone as Phil showed from what we heard from the former president in Iowa.
It is really the opposite of what Trump's aides kind of wanted him to be portraying here. And I think that it illustrates to you what we're in for as Haley decides -- tries to decide what she'll do in the context of this race. She's said she's going on to South Carolina. What does that mean for her? It is going to mean every day she stays in, attacks from the former president on everything from her looks in the final days of the campaign. We heard him misspelling intentionally her given name, putting up very unflattering photos of merging her face with Hillary Clinton.
I mean, that's the kind of ugliness that we are going to see I think day in and day out. If she remains here in this race. Now, there is already this -- there is a "Wall Street Journal" opinion page, editorial page piece out this morning that is already kind of getting attention from what I would describe as I guess both sides of the Republican Party.
Trump supporters, Vivek Ramaswamy for example, pointing to this as an example of what is wrong with the Republican Party. So this editorial says if Haley can remain competitive, there is an argument to stay in through the July convention. They say that Mr. Trump faces a treacherous legal road. Haley could stay in the race, rack up delegates and see what happens if he is found guilty.
On the other side, you do have -- and I've talked to a number of Republicans who want the party to nominate someone other than Donald Trump. They want her to stay in the race for this very reason. So that is kind of the frame I think that she is going to have to grapple with here. But if she wants to stay in, she has to be prepared that one-on- one race with Donald Trump is always -- really puts you in a pretty harsh and nasty spotlight from him, Poppy.
HARLOW: It does. And that piece really said a lot. I was struck by the line there is a case for contesting South Carolina even beyond that if she can withstand the abuse and fill out her campaign message. She's in it for now.
Kasie, we'll get back to you in just a minute. Thank you very much.
Phil to you.
HUNT: For now.
HARLOW: For now.
MATTINGLY: You know, Poppy, it's a good point made by Kasie in terms of the dynamics of the race. The Haley campaign really kind of bet it all on New Hampshire's independent voters, not just Republicans, independents, hoping that they could deliver an upset in a state where they outnumber registered Republicans by a significant margin but it wasn't enough to rival Trump's core Republican base.
Let's look at what actually happened last night. This is the map you're looking at. Donald Trump 56.4 percent, Haley at 43.4 percent. That is a sizable victory, 11 points is nothing to scoff of at, particularly given the money and time Haley spent in New Hampshire.
[05:10:08]
But there are clear warning signs here, and I want to underscore why that is. We've been talking so much about the undeclared voters in New Hampshire, why it is such a unique primary because of that fact. Three hundred forty-three thousand undeclared voters heading into primary day, that's almost 100,000 more than registered Republicans.
So how did they break? That was always going to be the big question. Nikki Haley was going to win those undeclared voters, it was a question by how much. So, when you actually look at the party split here, when we look at the exit polls from CNN last -- when it came to Republicans, 74 percent. That is a huge number to Haley's 25 percent.
Independents, Haley coming at 60 percent. That is a significant margin when you are talking about the numbers there and dealing with in undeclareds. It's not enough however.
So, we want to go back to John McCain's victory -- stunning victory in 2000, he was up winning that number by more than 40 points. That's where Haley needed to be, around that area. She wasn't there. But it does underscore some serious issues that Republicans will have going into this race.
I think this is a key thing to remember going forward. When you poll up where things are, apparently the magic wall is giving me serious attitude at the moment -- this is awesome. Love when this happens at 5:00 a.m.
HARLOW: It's all in that brain of yours.
MATTINGLY: I think the point here is this, if you look at these numbers, when Trump has 74 percent of Republicans, that is a huge problem going forward particularly heading into South Carolina. Yes, it does allow anybody who wants to vote in their primary vote, but it is a Republican stronghold, a more conservative base, more reminiscent of Iowa than it is New Hampshire.
The big question though for Trump is how big are the warning signs here. When you have independents breaking the way that they did in New Hampshire, that is a problem. When you have fewer Republicans by a significant margin identifying with the MAGA movement than they did in Iowa, that's a significant problem. When you have the number of Haley voters, more than 80 percent, saying that they would be dissatisfied if Trump is the Republican nominee, that is a problem.
That is an intra-party problem, that is a general election problem that Haley has continued to outline, whether or not it does anything for her momentum heading in to South Carolina, still very much a question.
HARLOW: Yeah, and that gap in the polling for Haley going into New Hampshire was more like this, and in South Carolina, at least for now is more like this, maybe three weeks could be this, I don't know.
MATTINGLY: I'll figure it out.
HARLOW: Shame on the wall.
All right. Nikki Haley refusing to bow out, making her case to stay in the race shifting her focus to November.
And we also have this breaking news out of Russia, a Russian military plane is down. Down near Belgorod. More than 70 people on board. We'll tell you what we know, ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:16:59]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RONNA MCDANIEL, RNC CHAIRWOMAN: I'm looking at the math and path going forward, and I don't see it for Nikki Haley. I think that she's run a great campaign. But I do think that there is a message that is coming out from the voters which is very clear, we need to unite around our eventual nominee which is going to be Donald Trump.
HOST: You're telling Nikki Haley that she needs to get out?
MCDANIEL: I just didn't see the path and the math. I hope she reflects tonight. I think it's time to move forward.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: I think you're going to hear a lot about the path and the math.
MATTINGLY: It's like maybe those are the two bullets in the prep. That's the math, that's math.
HARLOW: Maybe, maybe. That was RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel adding to the pressure for some for Nikki Haley to drop out after Trump's win in New Hampshire. But Haley as we mentioned is signaling she is still all in on this race. In a memo she issued yesterday, the Haley campaign identified several states they have their eyes on moving forward.
Michigan on February 27th and several Super Tuesday states. The campaign says that they have favorable demographics for Haley, notably all the states mention of open or semi-open primaries, which means -- and John Avlon is nodding like yes, yes, yes. We'll get to him in a moment, what she is counting on here. Kasie Hunt back with us. Also joining us, senior political analyst and anchor, John Avlon, as well as our political commentators, Geoff Duncan and Bakari Sellers.
John, let me just start with you on that, path and the math.
JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Path and the math, look, I love the map and what the Haley campaign is doing is all about open primaries, semi open primaries. I just published an op-ed on CNN.com about this.
This is fundamental. I mean, when Phil was wrestling with recalcitrant wall over there --
MATTINGLY: So mad.
AVLON: -- the key data to focus on is Haley winning more than two- thirds, all 60 percent, of independent voters, that's because they could participate. That's more representative sample of the electorate. It's a better gauge for who's in position to win a general election.
Obviously, Trump was decidedly ahead with Republicans and with conservatives. But I think that it is premature to call her out. And I think that she's got time on her side. She may not have the math in terms of sheer delegate count, but time is unlikely to be kind to Donald Trump's campaign as these court cases keep going on, as I think the negative piles up, as people realize that Donald Trump, the guy who tried to destroy our democracy on the basis of a lie could actually very well be the nominee. That's not going to help with general election match-up numbers.
MATTINGLY: We think the other side of the time issue, Kasie, to you because you know better than anybody, campaigns end when they run out of money. It's not because there's some great kind of idealistic view on trying to unify the party. They don't have any money left. That's why they get out of races.
The Haley campaign has gotten a ton of big donors. They can raise money. I think they raised $1.5 million since DeSantis dropped out.
What is your sense of the durability of their fundraising over the course of a month-long period where everyone is getting behind Trump right now?
HUNT: Yeah, Phil. And, you know, John, with all due respect, I see where you are coming from on time being on Nikki Haley's side, I cannot say that I agree. I think as this grinds on, this is going to get tougher and tougher without her -- I mean, look, if she wants to win, she's going to put up a W somewhere and it's really hard to see where that happens.
Now, to the question of money, Phil, I think it's going to be different for Haley actually than it was for Ron DeSantis, for example.
[05:20:05]
I do think -- and I honestly would put some of this -- I would put this question to Geoff as well as I know who is someone who, you know, has watched his Republican Party and dealt with the personal repercussions of what it means to take on Donald Trump. I do think that there are -- there is some big money out there that wants that as an option. I mean, that's why I was paying so much attention to "The Wall Street Journal" editorial board when she said we want Haley to stay in to kind of be this option.
On the other hand, it feels like this continued -- and I mean, I remember during the Trump administration asking Republicans what they're going to do, there's been this pipe dream out there from people that don't want Donald Trump as the head of the Republican Party. And it just doesn't materialize. I mean, over and over and over again, it doesn't materialize.
And, I mean, Jeff, I've been talking to a lot of people that are in the same space in some ways as you are. I mean, what do you want to see Nikki Haley do here? Especially considering how nasty the attacks are going to get against her.
GEOFF DUNCAN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think she finished enough last night to keep the momentum going. It certainly wasn't the numbers I wanted, but it's close enough to stay alive. But, I mean, look, there's a lot that can happen to your point. I mean, 91 indictments. I mean, she's running against somebody who has 91 indictments in four
or five jurisdictions. I mean, that's real stuff. And so, things could start to fall apart, although it seems unlikely.
But this goes to the core of the Republicans' problem. We only think about -- we only want to win the battle and not the war, right? We want to win the battle of the primary so we get ourselves in to all these awkward thoughts. This is another Herschel Walker moment.
MATTINGLY: Yeah.
DUNCAN: Right? I mean, we've seen this play out before.
MATTINGLY: Primary against (INAUDIBLE) or the Senate race.
DUNCAN: No, the Senate race against Raphael Warnock, one of the only Democrats elected statewide.
BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: What is everybody drinking this morning? I think people are on another planet right now. Nikki Haley ain't got no time. So either you get out now --
MATTINGLY: Why not?
HUNT: Bakari is correct.
(CROSSTALK)
SELLERS: -- because South Carolina is about to be the most brutal thing -- to Kasie's point, like we play a different type of politics in South Carolina. That's why a lot of South Carolina politicians never make it to the national scale. Respect to all the other states and their rough and tumble nature, South Carolina is a different animal.
Nikki Haley has kind of seen a little bit of that when she was running for governor in 2010. They had pictures of her father with a turban on. They talked about her religion. They castigated her by saying she had multiple affairs with all these different men. It was as nasty as you could imagine. They called her everything but a child of god.
DUNCAN: And she still won.
AVLON: And she won.
SELLERS: Correct. Going through that again with the backing of the former president of the United States, plus the entire Republican Party, save for three United States congressmen and governor who have endorsed her and Geoff Duncan, respectfully, I don't know if that's going to be enough, I don't know how she staves off this beating because it's not just next Tuesday, it is four weeks of pummeling that she has to go through and only thing that she will lose is money in her campaign.
HARLOW: And the blow is not getting endorsement of Tim Scott, who she appointed to that Senate seat. But listen to what Trump said about Tim Scott, obviously --
SELLERS: This is embarrassing.
DUNCAN: This is hard to --
HARLOW: Listen to this, folks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Did you ever think that she actually appointed you, Tim? And think of it, appointed and you are the senator of her state. And she endorsed me. You must really hate her. No, it's a -- it's a shame. It's a shame -- uh-oh.
SEN. TIM SCOTT (R-SC): I just love you.
TRUMP: No, that's -- that's why he's a great politician. That's why he's a great politician.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SELLERS: I don't know, man, that is a lot of ass to be kissing to be HUD director, right?
(LAUGHTER)
SELLERS: I mean, I just don't --
MATTINGLY: Housing stock is a problem in this country, Bakari.
SELLERS: I don't know, can you say that at 5:00 a.m.? I apologize to anybody in the control room.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, man, that was good.
SELLERS: But I mean, I love Tim. I know Tim very well.
I remember when Tim was running for lieutenant governor of the state of South Carolina, he was pulled aside by the powers that be, and said you need to run for the United States Congress. I remember when he was called up by Nikki Haley from the United States Congress in the first district after serving her term or two, to actually be a United States senator and like I am -- Nikki does not really -- she does not really command a lot of sympathy most times.
But I felt really bad for Nikki Haley in that moment because she lost the race, she gave her all, she was being making a magnanimous on stage.
HARLOW: She congratulated Trump.
SELLERS: She congratulated Trump actually, is threatening her, talking about her wardrobe, then her friend, her quote/unquote, friend was a part of the choir back there. And so there is a lot of things I can do, but I can't get down with that.
HARLOW: All right. Stay with us, guys, Kasie, John, Bakari, Geoff, appreciate it. Still ahead, a lot more and some breaking news.
MATTINGLY: Yeah, more U.S. airstrikes on Iran-backed militias in Iraq overnight. What the defense secretary is saying about it and what it means for the escalating tensions in the Middle East. We'll have it. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:28:57]
HARLOW: Breaking news this morning. Reports that Russian military plane carrying 74 people has crashed in Russia's Belgorod region near the border with Ukraine. Those on board include 65 Ukrainian service members who were being flown to Belgorod ahead of a prisoner exchange. This is according to Russian news agency quoting the defense ministry.
Let's go straight to our senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen who joins us in eastern Ukraine. I think this is just developing, but what facts do we have at this hour?
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, you're absolutely right, Poppy. This is obviously very much still in the early stages. The Russians are saying that in the early hours today that this plane crashed there in Belgorod, near the city of Belgorod, about 5 to 6 kilometers, about three or four miles from the actual city of Belgorod. And we do now actually have some video that apparently shows that plane coming down.
As you mentioned, is this an IL-76 transport aircraft that the Russian military uses. It's a median sized aircraft. I'd say it's about -- between the size of a Hercules and C-17 that went down there.
And you're also right that the Russians did say that there were 65 prisoners of war, Ukrainian prisoners of war on that plane include -- and then also the crew and some people who are also accompanying those prisoners of war. Obviously, the Russians are.
