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CNN This Morning

Trump Wins New Hampshire Primary, Haley Vows to Stay in Race; Haley Says, Democrats Want Badly to Run Against Donald Trump; Biden Campaign Shifts Toward General Election. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired January 24, 2024 - 07:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: -- also how now has a sampling of data from about a quarter of the MAX 9s in the U.S.

[07:00:04]

And it's looking at measurements to issue ungrounding orders for those plans.

Also asked the FAA chief that the flying public should be afraid of the MAX 9, he told me the FAA is not going to let that plane back in the air until they're convinced this issue is taken care of.

By the way, Boeing doing a safety stand down starting tomorrow. It is a one-day pause where workers will break off into work groups and sessions on quality. And the quote from the Boeing head of commercial planes, Stan Deal, says they're going to pause, evaluate what they're doing and look at recommendations for improvement. This is something the military typically does after it deals with a plane crash. Poppy, Phil?

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Big deal to stop production across that whole factory to really focus on quality, and we'll see if they keep doing it throughout. They might, Pete. Thank you for that reporting and important interview with the head of the FAA.

CNN This Morning continues now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: If you win both, they've never had a loser. We're not going to be the first, I can tell you.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Donald Trump will win the Republican primary in New Hampshire.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: The Republican Party has proven by and large they are willing to come home to Donald Trump.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is the moment that the Biden campaign is fully making that pivot to the general election.

TRUMP: I don't get to angry. I get even.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: That speech showed just how much she is under his skin.

NIKKI HALEY, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well I'm a fighter and I'm scrappy. And now we're the last one standing next to Donald Trump.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a great speech, but it may be her last one.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just don't see the path and the math.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The momentum, the pressure and the GOP party is built to support Donald Trump.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's South Carolina and beyond from the official standpoint of the campaign.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She's going home to fight, not to retreat. But, of course, they're always going forward until they're not.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Well, a good Wednesday morning, everyone. I'm Phil Mattingly with Poppy Harlow in New York.

Donald Trump scoring a decisive victory over Nikki Haley in New Hampshire as he continues his path toward the GOP presidential nomination.

Now, after Haley's loss, she's refusing to quit, vowing to stay in the race for next month's primary in her home state of South Carolina where polls do show her trailing Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HALEY: This race is far from over. There are dozens of states left to go.

The first party to retire its 80-year-old candidate is going to be the party that wins this election.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: As for Trump's part in his victory speech, he lashed out at Haley for not bowing out, like his other opponents. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Who the hell was the imposter that went up on the stage before and like claimed a victory? She did very poorly actually.

Just a little note to Nikki, she's not going to win.

When I watched her in the fancy dress, that probably wasn't so fancy, come up, I said what's she doing? We won.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Such a long way from that unifying speech in Iowa all of a week ago.

So, here's the reality on the ground right now. When you start to take stock of what happened in New Hampshire last night, two things can both be true. Donald Trump can have an absolute hammerlock on the Republican Party and very clearly be heading towards locking up the Republican nomination. And last night also underscored Nikki Haley's theory of the case for her race and had clear warning signs for Trump in a general election.

Let me show you what I mean here. Last night, Donald Trump, 54.6 percent, 11 point victory over Nikki Haley. That is a sizable amount in the state of New Hampshire. Let's track back though to 2016 where Trump was. This is obviously a much more bifurcated race. Trump at 35 percent winning by nearly 20 points.

So, what happened that was different? Well, take a look at one candidate in particular in 2016. That's John Kasich, where you see the pink here. All the red is Trump. Where you see the pink is John Kasich. He ran kind of a similar theoretical campaign that the Haley campaign was running, really trying to run up numbers in the suburbs with higher income folks, with folks with higher education levels as well. That was where Haley was going.

Also what Haley was focused on, those undeclared voters, the independents, nearly 350,000 voters that weren't Republican or Democrat, but could choose to vote Republican, much like what Kasich was trying to do.

So, what happened last night? Well, this is where the map is. You'll see a lot more yellow than there was pink, Haley picking up a number of townships and cities that Kasich was unable to.

Now, Trump still winning by a sizable margin, but when you think about Haley's theory of the case, what this shows is that it was, in large, part accurate.

Take a look at Bedford County, back in -- the township of Bedford. Back in 2016, Trump won this by 12 points over John Kasich. This, demographically, socioeconomically, is exactly what Haley was looking for, highly educated, high income.

This is the suburbs. This is where she wanted to win. This is where she did win, flipping Trump's lead by a significant amount, winning by almost ten points.

The reality, though, when you look across the state, ten points wasn't enough. And we saw it over and over again, whether in Concord, whether in some of the suburbs, whether in some Democratic strongholds, like the Portsmouth area, Haley running up numbers, flipping townships, flipping cities, but not flipping them by enough, and here's why.

[07:05:06]

When you look at the ideological breakdown when it came to last night, this is the number that matters more than anything else, Trump, 74 percent of Republicans supporting him, only 25 percent for Haley. Haley rolled up big numbers with those undeclareds, with those independents at 60 percent. If she wanted to win the state, she needed to be up to 75, 80 percent.

That's the reality of things. Still, clear warning signs, because those suburban voters, those higher income voters, some women voters, those with higher education levels, always an Achilles' heel for Donald Trump and would be in a general election as well, Poppy.

HARLOW: Right, Phil. Nikki Haley is warning Republicans against nominating Trump. She says that's exactly what the Democrats want. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HALEY: The worst kept secret in politics is how badly the Democrats want to run against Donald Trump. They know Trump is the only Republican in the country who Joe Biden can defeat.

A Trump nomination is a Biden win and a Kamala Harris presidency.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HALEY: With us this morning, Republican Strategist and Pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson, former Special Assistant to President George W. Bush, Scott Jennings is here, former Biden White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield and former Special Adviser to President Obama Van Jones.

Van, to you first. Ronna McDaniel keeps saying the path and the math is not there for Nikki Haley. She didn't say drop out, but she said, you know, drop out. You said that might be her last speech last night. You think that?

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It could be her last speech as a candidate. It's a tough assignment that she's got now because she's got to go to her home state where she's not doing very well in four weeks. What's going to happen is every day between now and then, every Republican in the country, from dog catcher all the way up, is going to be signing up on the Trump train, the Trump train, the Trump train.

And so it's just a very long, slow march to probably another defeat in South Carolina. At some point, it's not just your donors that start backing away, your volunteers start backing away.

HARLOW: Is there an unless there? Unless she goes what?

JONES: I mean, I think that, for her, I don't see a big unless it's tough. It's tough. But I tell you what, people have been saying all this time, I wish a Republican would stand up to Donald Trump. I wish people wouldn't just bow down and kiss the ring. There is one person in this country who's standing between Donald Trump and this nomination. It's Nikki Haley. She's not bowing down right now. She's not kissing the ring. I think people should be proud of her.

KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: And that's the main argument for her staying in. It is not that she is a viable contender to defeat Donald Trump in a head-to-head contest for the Republican nomination. It is to continue to give that 30 percent to 40 percent of the party that says, no, this is not the direction we want to go, a continuing voice.

It is true that only two states have participated. In the polls that I've done when we ask Republican voters if they tuned in or not to the primary, for those who say they haven't really tuned in yet, many of them say, well, it's too early. Well, bad news for them. It may be too late for them at this point.

But if you want to give your party a chance to say, hey, we're not all on the Trump train, that's why you stay in. But that's a tough reason to ask your donors to keep funding this effort. And that's why I wouldn't be surprised if she doesn't stay in all the way until South Carolina.

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: And, by the way, the donors have been funding this effort. Super PACs supporting Nikki Haley have surpassed $100 million in spending to try to take out Donald Trump. And now she's lost two states.

MATTINGLY: You know some of those folks. Are they going to keep giving her money?

JENNINGS: I mean, these people don't get rich by being stupid. I mean, at some point, you ask yourself, am I throwing good money after bad? Also, some of these people are transactional. Am I going to keep funding somebody and keep enraging Donald Trump here? I mean, these are the difficult conversations.

And it's tough on -- as Van said, it's tough on an election night to stand up, they say, okay, fine, I'm done. But once the realities of things begin to seep in, I mean, the truth is, Republicans decide who the Republican Party will nominate. She is not as popular among the Republicans as Trump is. An absent, an external or supernatural intervention that comes between now and some other state, it's not going to change.

And this is the most fertile ground she was ever going to get. And she came up short. They gave it a valiant effort. She made all the arguments that everybody on these panels has been making for years, and the Republicans chose otherwise.

MATTINGLY: I respect you giving credit to the political acumen of donors. I'm a little less all-in on that one, based on my conversations the last ten years.

If there's one thing Ronna McDaniel and Joe Biden agree on, it's that Donald Trump is the presumptive nominee at this point.

[07:10:00]

Is that what the Biden campaign wants?

KATE BEDINGFIELD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, absolutely.

MATTINGLY: Why?

BEDINGFIELD: Because the sooner they move to a general election posture, the sooner this becomes a concrete choice between Donald Trump with all of his vulnerabilities that, you know, some of which you were discussing earlier.

He has a clear -- he has clear vulnerabilities in the general election. He has a ceiling. He has issues with moderate voters, with suburban women. We saw that on display in the vote totals last night. You know, he's going to have trouble reassembling a coalition that got him elected in 2016.

So, for Biden, the sooner he can make this about the reality of Donald Trump, not as an abstract, but as a candidate, as somebody who is constantly hurling, you know, personal invective, who is constantly making the race about retribution, you know, that is a good contrast for Biden. And the sooner that they make that head to head, the better it is for Joe Biden.

HARLOW: Okay. So, if we do fast forward there, we can't yet. Nikki Haley is very much still in this race. But if it is a head-to-head Trump and Biden again, we've seen the vice president on the trail so much more just in the last week. You saw our interview with Laura Coates here on the message of abortion, protecting those rights, trying to regain those rights, abortion, abortion, abortion. He has a lot of ground to make up when it comes to black voters and also voters that supported him who don't now because of his consistent support for Netanyahu in Israel. Two big challenges, no?

JONES: Yes. There are two people standing in between Donald Trump and the White House. One is Nikki Haley, the other is Joe Biden. Both right now don't look as strong as you want them to. If both right now look like they've got some big problems, I think, in our party, you have a big disaffection wave going on with our younger voters, who are going to be your volunteers, who are going to be out there working for you ordinarily.

In 1968, the Democratic Party had a president who had his hands on a war that the images were shocking the nation, Vietnam. And our Convention '68 was a disaster and Nixon won. We've got a very unpopular war right now. The images there are shocking a generation and that same thing could happen again.

So, Joe Biden has a bunch of challenges, but as you just heard, Trump doesn't have an easy path either. You've got two radically unpopular and weak nominees, it looks like, for both parties, but I think people should be proud of Nikki Haley. I like for her to stay as long as possible and then we've got to start working on our party to get us ready for a real fight.

BEDINGFIELD: And I will say, I do think the Biden campaign knows, that they have weaknesses with young voters, that they have work to do with voters of color. I mean, they have spent a lot of 2023 laying down the infrastructure to try to put together a campaign that's going to reach out to those communities.

So, you know, this is why we run the race. And I think the Biden campaign recognizes that they have worked.

HARLOW: Can you talk about what they're going to do on that front, because they'll point to pulling the shows to strengthen among older black voters but it's not there among younger black voters by a big margin.

BEDINGFIELD: Some of it is going to be talking about the things that he's done that impacts young people. And that's some of his economic agenda, that's on issues like climate. I mean, there are, you know, across the board, student debt. I mean, there are issues that have impact with young voters, including voters of color, that the campaign can do a lot to reach out. They can run paid advertising. They can put together an infrastructure that lets them talk to those communities.

But I also think, don't forget, the contrast is a big part of this, right? A big part of this is saying, you know, Donald Trump poses a threat to your ability to build a good future for yourself, and here's what that looks like.

ANDERSON: But Donald Trump's -- pardon me, Joe Biden's weakness has been Donald Trump's best friend throughout this primary process. Because as you heard in Haley's speech last night saying, look, we didn't get across the finish line here in New Hampshire but we're going to keep going, is she said, look, you need me to stay in because if we pick Donald Trump, disaster looms.

And there's a lot of data that suggests she's right, but not enough data. Because Republicans can look at Joe Biden and go, there's no way America's going to elect this guy again, right? And so it undercuts the core of Haley's argument all along, and it has made it hard for anyone but Trump to get traction.

JENNINGS: Republicans, they want this delicious moment where they see Donald Trump beating Joe Biden on election night.

Two quick things. It's the economy and whether Donald Trump gets convicted of a crime. If people feel better about the economy, Biden goes up. If Donald Trump gets convicted, he loses a cohort of Republicans. If he gets acquitted, look out.

MATTINGLY: I would note the University of Michigan consumer sentiment popping 13 points is probably something the Biden economic and campaign teams noticed, great points all. Thank you guys very much, Kristen Soltis Anderson, Scott Jennings, Van Jones, Kate Bedingfield.

President Biden, as we discussed, making it clear he believes Trump will be the GOP nominee come November. How is the president's team gearing up for that general election against Trump.

Maryland Governor Wes Moore joins us next to discuss.

HARLOW: Also this breaking overnight, a Russian military plane crashes near the Ukraine border. Russia and Ukraine with conflicting claims about what happened, who was on board.

[07:15:00] We have that breaking news reporting ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: President Biden viewing last night's results is the unofficial start of the general election. He put out a statement saying, it's now clear Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee. My message to the country is the stakes could not be higher.

Let's bring in a key supporter and surrogate for the Biden campaign and the Democratic governor of Maryland, Wes Moore. Governor, great to have you.

It's clear what they're thinking.

GOV. WES MOORE (D-MD): Thank you, good morning.

HARLOW: And you look -- good morning. You look at the poll earlier this month from CBS. It shows that Nikki Haley in a hypothetical head had matched up with the president bests him by eight points. Would Biden rather run against Trump than Nikki Haley? Would you rather see that?

MOORE: Well, I think we saw, especially after last night, that Nikki Haley is not going to be the Republican nominee. You think about what happened last night, where the president wasn't even on the ballot and ended up winning by over 50 points via a write-in campaign.

[07:20:00]

And Nikki Haley spent the past few weeks campaigning heavily in New Hampshire, in a state that actually gave independents the chance to be able to vote for her and then ended up losing by double digits to a person who didn't really campaign in New Hampshire because Donald Trump spent most of last week in a courtroom.

I think the people of New Hampshire saw what people around the country and what people in my state of Maryland are seeing, that the policies of President Biden, that they are working, that we have a president who is now driven historically low levels of unemployment.

Here in the state of Maryland, we have the lowest unemployment rate in the entire country. Since I've been governor, we've announced the creation of over 39,000 jobs, billions of dollars of infrastructure projects. And so I think it's very clear that the nominees are going to be Donald Trump and against President Biden. And that's why I feel very good about President Biden's re-election process.

HARLOW: And there are just some hills here for President Biden to climb, if that is the case. His approval rating is really low. His rating on the economy is really low. His rating on dealing with the southern border is low. You know, those are just all facts from the polling.

We've heard so much more just in the last week from this administration on the right to abortion. This was really interesting, I thought, from a key ally of the president, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, about wanting to hear more from him, not everyone around him, but him on abortion. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARGARET BRENNAN, CBS HOST: Joe Biden doesn't talk about abortion much. In fact, he has said he's not big on it because of his faith. Does he need to talk about it more?

GOV. GRETCHEN WHITMER (D-MI): I think it would be good if he did.

BRENNAN: Do you think he needs to be the messenger on that more?

WHITMER: I don't think it would hurt. I think people want to know that this is a president that is fighting and I think he has said that. To use maybe more blunt language, maybe that would be helpful.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Do you also, Governor, think that would be helpful?

MOORE: I agree with the governor. I also think that the responsibility can't fall on him. You know, this is an issue that all of us are dealing with, where we have watched decades of basic reproductive rights, basic health care, now being under assault.

And you're seeing how states are taking leadership on it. Here in our state, you know, in my first months as governor, we passed legislation that did things like increasing privacy, increasing protections, making it illegal for someone to be prosecuted for getting an abortion in the state of Maryland. And now in this election, in November, abortion rights are going to be on the ballot, because we're going to put it on the Constitution in the state of Maryland.

So, I think we want to see -- you know, so, yes, I think the president is speaking with a full throat about the importance of these protections.

HARLOW: Given how you've led on this, Governor, in your state, you want to hear more from the president on this?

MOORE: Yes.

HARLOW: Yes, Okay. So I also want to talk --

MOORE: Well, I think we know that we have the president as an ally in this and I think that our ability to be able to lead in our state the way that we have, abortion is healthcare. And I think we also know that we have a president who doesn't just speak on this but also is providing all the supports that we need on the state level to make that so.

HARLOW: We were just talking with our panel here at the table about where the president is underperforming, particularly among African- American voters, underperforming by double digits compared to where he was in 2020. And you look at The New York Times polling, 22 percent of black voters in these six key battleground states said that they would support Trump. That is a number for a Republican presidential candidate frontrunner that we haven't seen in 50 years. I wonder if you're worried about that.

MOORE: You know, I know as the only African-American governor in this country and only the third elected African-American in the history of this country, the thing that I know that the black community is looking for is we want results and not rhetoric.

This is a president -- I think about just during the time of President Biden, just during our time, as governor, we've watched the African- American unemployment rate drop to historic lows. We've watched the rate of black businesses started by black men has increased significantly.

The child poverty rate, not just in the black child poverty, not just in the state of Maryland, but around the country, has decreased significantly under President Biden. Under Donald Trump, we continue to hear him brag about how many indictments he has.

HARLOW: I think that's why I'm wondering, Governor --

MOORE: I think that it's very clear.

HARLOW: -- how you explain the numbers, particularly young black voters. I mean, 32 percent approval among young black voters, voters under 50. Given what you just said, how do you explain that? And how does this campaign turn that around?

MOORE: Well, I think it's important for the campaign and it's important for all of us as surrogates to make sure that people understand the connection. You know, listen, I think about what's happening here in our state, right, where we have been very intentional and very deliberate, that I want Maryland to be the state that ends the racial wealth gap. I want us to be able to, and we are focusing on things like unfair appraisal values in historically red- lined neighborhoods. We're focusing on things like increasing capital to African-American entrepreneurs. We're focusing on things like how to create young people and our students, how to turn them into from being employees to employers.

[07:25:00]

These are all things that are happening in partnership with the Biden administration and the Biden-Harris administration. So, I think it does behoove not just a campaign, but also all of us as surrogates to be able to make sure that that's translating to people on the ground who want to see and understand that we have a president who sees us, who feels us and who's willing to invest in us.

HARLOW: Governor, the president was out yesterday making his pitch on abortion rights, and he was interrupted over a dozen times by protesters opposing his support for Israel. You can take a look at some of this and opposing, calling for an immediate ceasefire. And I wonder what your concern level is about that, particularly when it comes again to another constituency of young voters. This is something Gretchen Whitmer has also talked about being concerned about. And I wonder if you are as well.

MOORE: Yes. My baseline always comes back to humanity and protection of human life. You know, what we saw on October 7th was unconscionable. And we know that Hamas is not and will never be a legit partner inside the work.

We have to be able to push for a peaceful and stable Israeli state. We also need to make sure that we have a peaceful and stable Palestinian state as well. Anybody who is not pushing for that is not going to be a partner inside this work.

And I think that that's something that the president has been talking about and pushing for, the idea that we need to be able to have a pause with infighting to allow humanitarian aid in, that we need to be able to ensure that we get the hostages out now. These have to be priorities. We have to preserve human life. And the

president is acting as the commander-in-chief in making sure that we can get that conclusion and really make sure that we have peaceful states, both the Palestinian and Israeli, states side by side. And anybody who is not fighting for that is not going to be part of a long-term solution.

HARLOW: Before I let you go, switching gears in a large way, I do have to ask you about something little happening this weekend, and that is the AFC title. Who takes it home this weekend, Governor? And how superstitious are you?

MOORE: I'm pretty superstitious. You know, we've already said, when the Ravens go to the Super Bowl, there's no way we're missing that. And at the same time, I'm like let's hold off until Sunday. This is the most -- the Ravens are the most complete team in football.

There's only one team that can beat the Ravens left, and that's the Ravens. I feel very good about what we're going to be able to do. And, literally, we have the league's most exciting player, the MVP, and who's going to lead us to Vegas for the Super Bowl.

So, we're feeling good. We respect Kansas City, but Kansas City is about to take it off.

HARLOW: Not good enough to buy your plane tickets to Vegas yet, but we'll all be watching, Governor. Thank you.

MATTINGLY: Well, it felt quickly. He flipped into like NFL analyst mode.

HARLOW: He is all in on this.

MATTINGLY: It was impressive. I can credit for that. Well, other news breaking overnight, a Russian military plane crashes near the Ukraine border. How conflicting accounts from Russians and Ukrainians are impacting the crash and what we're learning about the moment that plane went down, next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:30:00]