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Lawmakers Unveil Government Funding Bills Ahead Of Deadline; Trump's Influence Looms Large Over McConnell Successor; Caitlin Clark Breaks NCAA's D-1 Scoring Record. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired March 04, 2024 - 05:30   ET

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

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[05:30:12]

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: All right, a live look at the White House with the Washington Monument lit up behind it and also to check and see if the president has gotten up yet. He clearly has not.

Good morning. Thanks for being up with us. I'm Kasie Hunt. Just before 5:30 here on the East Coast.

The Supreme Court may be hours from announcing whether Donald Trump is eligible to appear on Colorado's presidential ballot. The court never reveals which opinions are going to be released in advance -- and there it is -- the court -- but the justices may want to decide the Trump ballot issue before Colorado voters head to the polls tomorrow in their Super Tuesday primary.

Also over the weekend, put one in the win column for Nikki Haley. CNN projects the former South Carolina governor won Sunday's Washington, D.C. primary. That's her first victory of the primary season.

Haley's campaign put out this statement. "It is not surprising that Republicans closest to Washington dysfunction are rejecting Donald Trump and all his chaos."

The Trump campaign, for their part, called her the Queen of the Swamp.

Also today, 29 delegates are up for grabs in the North Dakota primary.

Let's bring in our guest, Max Cohen, congressional reporter for Punchbowl News. And Washington Post White House reporter, Tyler Pager. Good to see both of you.

This is a massive week in politics, right? We've got Super Tuesday. On Thursday, we've got the State of the Union.

Tyler, you cover President Biden so closely. And the other thing that we haven't touched on too much so far this morning, there's a pair of really tough polls for the president that came out over the weekend -- one in The New York Times. Their headline, "Most Biden voters of 2020 fear he's too old to lead."

The Journal also finds that while people are starting to feel a little bit better about the economy it doesn't seem to be helping the president.

What have you been hearing from the White House as these numbers have been coming out?

TYLER PAGER, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: Yeah. Look, what I've been hearing from Democrats around the country is panic and fear. And what you're hearing from the White House and the Biden campaign is very different. They continue to largely dismiss these polls and say it's too early. Most Americans are not yet tuning in. Most Americans have not yet realized that it is going to be a Biden- Trump rematch.

Now, I think they're also putting a lot of pressure and raising the stakes on Thursday's State of the Union, saying this is going to be the best opportunity yet for the president to lay out what his agenda is for a second term and make the case that he is capable, he's not old enough, and he's fully able to do the job of president.

HUNT: You mean he's not too old --

PAGER: Exactly.

HUNT: -- not old enough.

PAGER: Not -- yeah.

HUNT: Fair enough.

PAGER: That he's too old --

HUNT: Yeah.

PAGER: That he's too old and not -- and is fully capable of serving another four years in office.

HUNT: OK.

Max -- I mean, Tyler mentions panic and fear among others. I mean, what are you picking up from Democrats? I know you're -- crawling through the -- walking through the halls of Capitol Hill every day. I mean, where would you put Democrats in Congress right now on the fear scale of whether or not the president is able to get reelected?

MAX COHEN, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, PUNCHBOWL NEWS: I think it's definitely inching up but there's this sense that they can't do anything about it, right? We're at the stage of the presidential primary when there's no clear alternative to Joe Biden and Hill Democrats understand that. I've spoken to a lot of them and they say privately, look, we know we can't control Biden's performance. We can focus on what we can do ourselves on the Hill.

HUNT: Right.

COHEN: They always want to talk about touting the accomplishments they achieved last Congress, and there are significant accomplishments -- Inflation Reduction Act, Infrastructure Act, CHIPS. But what really is baffling the Hill Democrats is that you look at these polls in the Times that had it -- and you had it earlier -- voters think Biden's policies have hurt them. And that does not compute with what Democrats are saying on the trail, which is look what we've done for you as voters.

HUNT: Right. And that's, of course, the messing question.

Tyler, you also had spent a lot of time reporting out how President Biden himself kind of makes decisions and that, of course, is going to be all the more critical as we head into these final months before the 2024 election.

What did you find, and how do you think that that's going to influence how the election plays out?

PAGER: Yeah. This is the beginning of a three-part series I'm doing on how Biden leads, trying to give the American people a better understanding of what the president is like behind the scenes. How he does the job of running the U.S. government.

And I think one of the -- this first series looked at how he gets information. How does he decide what he cares about and what his priorities are? And one of the things that I found most interesting was how there's often these chance encounters he has from people he goes to church with, from people that work on this property in Wilmington where he's getting this real-time pulse of what's happening --

HUNT: Yeah.

PAGER: -- in the country.

And I think it's really important because there are issues that just don't break through in the presidential bubble. He travels around with this huge hulking Secret Service detail. He doesn't have that same sort of encounters with the American people that he did when he was a senator traveling every day between Wilmington on the Amtrak.

HUNT: And he was, like, sitting on the train.

PAGER: Exactly.

HUNT: Yeah.

PAGER: And conductors would come up to him. Random passengers would come up to him. It was a way for him to get a pulse of what's happening in the country. I think that's a lot harder for him now.

And we've heard from former colleagues and friends of the president how hard it is to get in touch with him. And it's clear he's trying to break out of that, too.

And so, it was just -- I think as we get closer to the election he's going to be trying to get a lot more feedback from the American people about what's working and what's not working and how his message should or needs to change in order for him to win again.

[05:35:06]

HUNT: I mean, it is a really interesting conundrum when you are president and the goal is for you to be in touch with people. The fact that you do -- the nature of the job means you are just kind of behind these security lines at all times.

All right, stand by guys for one second because I do want to talk about -- well, I mean, honestly, it's a new week but it's really the same story because Congress has another Friday deadline to avoid another partial government shutdown.

Last night, lawmakers unveiled a final package of six government funding bills. Both parties quickly tried to claim that they had won.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said this in a statement. Quote, "We are proud to be keeping the government open without cuts or poison pill riders." So that poison pill riders is a reference to things conservatives want.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, of course, had this slightly different take. "House Republicans secured key conservative policy victories, rejected left-wing proposals, and imposed sharp cuts to agencies and programs critical to President Biden's agenda."

Johnson, of course, derailed the Senate's bipartisan Ukraine aid package but he has been leaving the door open to a new proposal that's emerging in the House. However, some far-right members of his conference, like Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, are opposed to doing anything.

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MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Just on Ukraine, the speaker seems open to moving something, according to the members who are pushing this. What do you say to him?

REP. MAJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): I think that would be the dumbest thing possible going into Super Tuesday.

RAJU: What is that?

GREENE: Because the American people don't support it. So I think it's pretty foolish to bring a funding bill to the floor on something that the American people just don't support.

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HUNT: "The dumbest thing possible," she says.

Max, what is your sense of how this is going to play out on Ukraine funding, specifically? Like, what is Johnson going to do?

COHEN: It's incredibly murky. I don't think anyone knows -- even Johnson, himself. As you saw from the Marjorie Taylor Greene clip, the far-right of his conference is incredibly opposed to this stuff.

HUNT: Um-hum.

COHEN: And Johnson has governed, so far, as a speaker, concerned about what the far-right of his conference thinks, which makes sense given what happened to his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, who was vacated over working with Democrats to pass a short-term government funding bill.

I think that we've seen some senior figures, like House Foreign Affairs Committee chair Michael McCaul, propose a GOP-only bill that would focus on funding Ukraine and maybe having border provisions, which would stand in contrast to what Democrats want, which is hey, just bring up the Senate bill, which passed overwhelmingly with Mitch McConnell's support as well as Democrats, which only focused on foreign aid.

Honestly, the path forward here is not clear to anyone because the Republicans have said we want this paired with the border.

HUNT: Right.

COHEN: But when add that Murphy-Sinema-Lankford bill, which was a border bill, Donald Trump and other far-right Republicans killed it. So Democrats say hey, you guys want a border, you killed it. What do we do? As we stand here in March, it's not a priority for Mike Johnson and that's clear.

HUNT: Yeah. Tyler, you're kind of shaking your head here. I mean, where is the White House in all this?

PAGER: Yeah. The White House is endlessly frustrated by what they say is the inability of House Republicans and Republicans more generally to govern.

I think the president and his aides now see the failure of that immigration bill as an opportunity to try to go on the offensive. Obviously, we had those dueling border visits from Biden and Trump. Quickly, immigration is becoming a top priority for voters in this election.

But Biden also sees the Ukraine issue as a legacy item. He sees his whole presidency through this prism of autocracy versus democracy and trying to promote democracy abroad. And there are great fears on the front lines of this Ukraine war that without additional American support, they are not going to be able to sustain the defense that they have valiantly put up for almost two years now.

So I think this is a huge issue for Biden not just in the current moment but he sees this as a legacy item of rallying the world to support Ukraine in response to Russia's invasion.

HUNT: Where is the White House right now on possible executive orders around immigration? PAGER: I mean, they're looking at it and I think we are going to hear more detail on that this week leading up to the State of the Union where the president is supposed to unveil a series of executive orders. But the president has been very clear and his aides have been very clear that there's limited action that he can take. I think we should expect to see some action from the president -- some executive orders.

And the reaction that I'm carefully monitoring is from the left wing of Biden's party and how they respond to what is expected to be tougher immigration enforcement or attempts to try to be tougher --

HUNT: Right.

PAGER: -- on the border.

HUNT: Max, quickly, what are you watching for in the State of the Union later this week?

COHEN: Biden needs to address the age concerns. Democrats, themselves, even acknowledge that he's no spring chicken. And he needs to get through this speech without making any major gaffes. That's the main thing.

I'll also see what Republicans do. Of course, last year we had Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene stand up and heckle the president, which was pretty rare to see. We'll see if decorum can last or if there's going to be more Republican attempts to derail his speech.

HUNT: Yeah. I remember when everyone was horrified at Congressman Wilson who stood up and yelled "You lied, Obama." And, like, we have just (INAUDIBLE) now.

[05:40:03]

All right, guys. Thank you both very much for being here. I really appreciate it.

All right. Up next, a Republican senator warning Donald Trump to stay out of the race to replace Mitch McConnell. Plus, an epic day in Iowa City. Caitlin Clark now stands alone.

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HUNT: All right, welcome back.

With eight months to go before the November election, possible successors to Mitch McConnell are trying to lock down support. One wild card -- ever the wild card -- Republican frontrunner Donald Trump and how much influence he should wield in choosing McConnell's replacement.

[05:45:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. MARKWAYNE MULLIN (R-OK): My advice to President Trump -- which President Trump is his own man and he's going to make a decision and he does a good job in that -- is to kind of stay out of the race because it's a lose-lose situation. He needs to work for -- with whatever leader is there. And let me tell you whatever leader is there understands that they're going to have to --

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR, "STATE OF THE UNION": Right.

MULLIN: -- work with President Trump, too.

So it's really not in his best interest to lean in the race at this point. However, if he chooses to do it, it will make a difference.

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HUNT: All right, joining us now is The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Washington correspondent, Tia Mitchell. Tia, good morning. Always great to see you.

This sort of -- the race to replace McConnell is already underway. He says he's going to leave in November.

But, again, the person that looms over all of this consistently is Donald Trump. So why is he kind of framing it this way? If Trump were to weigh in here and not get the person that he wants, that potentially causes problems.

I mean, what do you see going on behind the scenes?

TIA MITCHELL, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, THE ATLANTA JOURNAL- CONSTITUTION: So, number -- I thought it was interesting to hear Sen. Mullin because he's kind of talking about the old school way that presidents would say I can work with anyone in my party. I just want my party to be in charge.

And we know that Trump has been more hands-on in reshaping the Republican Party in his own image, and a lot of that is self-serving because we know that Trump has been a very non-traditional candidate and he wants a party that serves him. He's trying to silence his critics and that's what makes this race to replace McConnell more interesting.

It's very likely that as Trump has taken over the party as a whole he will also have a much more loyal new Senate Republican leader. Those are just the facts. That's what I think is going to happen in November.

HUNT: Certainly, whoever succeeds Mitch McConnell is likely to be closer to Donald Trump than Mitch McConnell has been. And I will say also Trump's record on picking these leaders is not necessarily great, right? I mean, he weighed in on the House Speaker fight and didn't get his guy at the end of the day. So, definitely some challenges there.

Tia, let's talk about, kind of, the big -- the big story that's dominating the presidential race over the weekend, and that is President Biden's age. These numbers in The New York Times pretty tough for him. I mean, their headline, "Most Biden voters of 2020" -- so people that voted for him in 2020 say he's too old to lead.

"SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE" had a little fun with this. Let's take a look at a little bit of what they had on "SNL."

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MARCELLO HERNANDEZ, CAST MEMBER, "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE" (PLAYING HOMELAND SECURITY SEC. ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS): Behind closed doors, he's a dynamo. This weekend, we both went down to the border town of Brownsville, Texas, and Joe went into beast mode.

He said, "We're going to tighten this border. Look how easy I can cross it." Then he parkoured up to the top of the border wall. He front-flipped into the Rio Grande and came back up with a fish in his mouth. But you didn't report that because it doesn't fit your little narrative.

HEIDI GARDNER, CAST MEMBER, "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE" (PLAYING CNN'S DANA BASH): Well, with all due respect, it doesn't fit reality.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: And, of course, a parody of our very own --

MITCHELL: Dana.

HUNT: -- Dana Bash.

MITCHELL: I loved that.

HUNT: But look -- I mean, that's -- this is the challenge they're facing, right? And this is, of course, just a few days ahead of the biggest moment, arguably, that the president will have -- certainly, in the next couple of months. Millions of people watching the State of the Union on Thursday.

What's the imperative for him given these circumstances?

MITCHELL: So I think -- I think the White House knows that the imperative for President Biden beyond laying out a vision for America in a contrast with former President Trump -- I think having a strong speech. His delivery is going to matter a lot. His energy is going to matter a lot because we know that a lot of people just aren't paying attention as much to the daily campaigning. It's kind of early. But the State of the Union does grab a lot of attention.

And I think -- so, for President Biden, he needs to have a good night. He needs to come across strong, clear-minded, focused, and really communicate with the American people that he has a hand on the job and that -- and that they can see him continuing in the role. I think that's what people are struggling with. They struggle with seeing him as presidential because he comes across -- not just his age but his gait, his mannerisms come across as just kind of a little bit elderly, and I think they struggle with that. HUNT: Yeah. Let's put -- and we had a breakdown from this poll a

second ago up on the screen -- let's put it back -- kind of showing the question that The New York Times asked right there. You can see the difference here between Biden and Trump, right?

So, The New York Times/Sienna College poll -- who is too old to be an effective president? Seventy-three percent agree that Biden is too old to be effective. But only 42 percent say Trump is too old.

We just should remind everyone there's just over three years between these two guys. I mean, they're definitely the same generation.

What do you think explains the gap there?

MITCHELL: So, again, I think the gap is not just the age on the paperwork. It's that President Biden -- a) the job has aged him. We know every president --

HUNT: It ages everyone --

MITCHELL: Yeah --

HUNT: -- for sure.

MITCHELL: -- it ages you. And so he already started out as the oldest American to be elected president. The natural aging of the role.

[05:50:02]

And then, I think this has been an interesting study in just the fact that people -- individuals age differently. When you look at Biden and his contemporaries -- Mitch McConnell, Jim Clyburn, Nancy Pelosi -- all of them have aged differently even though they're kind of similar in age on paper.

HUNT: Right.

MITCHELL: And so -- and even Trump. Trump doesn't come across nearly as old as Biden in his mannerisms and things like that even though, as you mentioned, they're only three years apart.

So I think, again, it's not just about the age on the paperwork, it's how people perceive President Biden. And we know he also does have his speech impediment and things like that that aren't necessarily tied to age, so I want to say that -- the stuttering. But I think, in general, people say he looks to be older. He looks to be someone that we wouldn't necessarily think has the energy to be president for another four years.

HUNT: Yeah, but we should -- we should certainly note -- I mean, Donald Trump has made his share of mistakes on the campaign trail lately. But these numbers speak for themselves in terms of what you're saying about how voters perceive the differences between these two men.

All right, Tia Mitchell. Thank you so much. We'll see you at the top of the hour with our panel.

All right, now this. Taylor Swift's Eras Tour has landed in Singapore but it is not without controversy.

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TAYLOR SWIFT, SINGER-SONGWRITER: Singing "Bad Blood."

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HUNT: We'll take any excuse to play that, won't we -- "Bad Blood." Because neighboring governments are upset with Singapore for reportedly paying up to $3 million per show for an exclusive deal with the star in Southeast Asia. Singapore's culture minister says that the grant was, quote," Not anywhere as high as speculated."

CNN has reached out to Swift's spokespeople and to Singapore's government for a comment on this controversy.

All right, time now for sports. Caitlin Clark stands alone. The Iowa superstar has now scored more points than anyone and in NCAA history -- in D-1 history, man or woman.

Coy Wire has this morning's Bleacher Report. Coy, good morning. This is so cool.

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: It is just dreamy. I mean, the girl from Iowa who grew up playing in the boy's leagues, she's had a career that is the stuff of legend.

It was Senior Day in Iowa City. Clark signing autographs for the next generation ahead of her final regular season home game. Eighteen-point shot at breaking Pete Maravich's all-time mark.

Caitlin putting on a show. She's known for her circus-like three-point shot from way downtown. But the moment came, Kasie, just before the half and fittingly, Clark was all alone. All eyes seeing her push past Pistol Pete's mark with a pair of free throws.

Sell-out crowd -- they knew it. Everyone knew it except Caitlin. Did you know it happened?

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CAITLIN CLARK, GUARD, IOWA HAWKEYES: Not really, but then when they announced it and everybody screamed, that's when I knew. But pretty cool. A good half for us. I think we can do a little better job on defense and clean it up a little bit. But I'm proud of our girls. We're fighting and they're a really good team. They're going to give us everything they've got.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIRE: Locked in, all business.

LeBron James, fresh off becoming the NBA's first-ever 40,000-point scorer, posting a bunch of buckets giving his congrats. And President Joe Biden titling her the GOAT in his post -- the greatest of all time.

All this came against the number two team in the nation, Ohio State. Clark's Hawkeyes -- she's the Hawkeyes' heartbeat. She finished with 35 points. Number-six Iowa pulling off the 93-83 upset win.

She becomes legend, breaking the all-time NCAA D-1 scoring record, but also tying Steph Curry's single-season three-point record in this game -- 162 of them.

Afterwards, she tried to put it all into perspective.

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CLARK: A record is a record. I don't want that to be the reason people remember me. I hope people remember me for the way I played with a smile on my face, my competitive fire. Sure, they can remember the wins but also just, like, the fun me and my teammates had together. And I think honestly, if you would have told me that before my college career started I would have laughed in your face and been, like, no, you're insane.

And, like, I've always been able to score the ball but I don't think people really understand how many amazing players have come before me, whether it's Pete or whether it's Kelsey Plum or Lynette Woodard. Like, all these people have just given so much to the game. So hopefully, somebody comes after me and breaks my records and I can be there supporting them. And that's what makes the game of basketball so fun.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIRE: Now, the Boston Celtics -- they're on a level we've never seen in the NBA, notching their third game where they've won by at least 50 points. No other team in the league has ever done that in a single season.

The Warriors didn't know what hit them. The C's were up by 44 at halftime -- franchise record. Boston's on an unreal stretch, outscoring opponents by an average of 22.1 points per game in the 11- game winning streak. The largest margin ever over an 11-game stretch in NBA history.

[05:55:04]

And finally, Alex Morgan and the U.S. Women's National Team, looking to handle business, bounced back from a stunning 2-nil loss to Mexico in the Gold Cup. And they did with a dominating performance against Colombia. Already up 1-nil, Jenna Nighswonger ripping home a stinger off the brilliant header from Morgan. And then, Jaedyn Shaw -- she's strong. The 19-year-old's third goal of the tourney making it 3-nil.

The U.S. now facing the defending Olympic champs from Canada in the semis on Wednesday. But Caitlin Clark, Kasie, is just absolutely unreal. Thirty games

they've either sold out or broke attendance records this year all because of the magic she's been making on the court. It's something to see.

HUNT: It's amazing. I love seeing -- I mean, women's sports in the spotlight like this. It's so awesome. And she's got such class, too, when you hear her talk.

WIRE: No doubt.

HUNT; All right, Coy. Thank you so much.

WIRE: You got it.

HUNT: All right. Coming up next here on CNN THIS MORNING, we are closely monitoring the Supreme Court for a ruling that could impact the race for the White House.

Plus, Nikki Haley heading into Super Tuesday with her first primary victory over Donald Trump.

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