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Swift-Kelce Romance is beneficial for the league; Donald Trump Scheduled to Return to Court for Defamation Trial's Final Arguments; 2024 U.S. Primary Race; Trump's Nomination Dropped by RNC Due to Opposition; Republicans Under Pressure from Trump to Thwart Border Reform; Interview with (R) Former U.S. Representative and (R) Former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford; Israel-Hamas War; ICJ: Israel Must Take All Measures to Prevent Genocide in Gaza; ICJ Disapproved Prejudice Towards Israel, Says Netanyahu; Biden Calls on Netanyahu to Defuse the Situation in Gaza. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired January 26, 2024 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATE REPORTER: I think there are more. Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce relationship impact on the NFL. You mentioned it, positive impact. 71 percent of football fans, 80 percent of Swifties. I am a fan of Taylor Swift. I'm a fan of her impact on the game. It's brought more people into it despite the fact that we root for different teams and I wished her to cry last week. I do overall like her and her impact on the NFL.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN THIS MORNING CO-ANCHOR: I love -- on the back end, trying to get in a better place with Taylor Swift after your attacks last week. You know what really matters, brings people together? Jason Kelce, shirtless. Harry Enten, I love you, buddy.

"CNN News Central" starts right now.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN THIS MORNING CO-ANCHOR: That was amazing.

SARA SIDNER, CNN NEWS CENTRAL CO-ANCHOR: In just moments, Donald Trump will be back in court for closing arguments in the defamation trial against him after taking the stand for just a few minutes. We're live outside the court where the jury could have their case in their hands by this afternoon.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEWS CENTRAL CO-ANCHOR: Republican backlash this morning after the RNC considered a resolution that would declare Donald Trump the presumptive nominee. We've got new reaction from both Nikki Haley and Donald Trump.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN NEWS CENTRAL CO-ANCHOR: Prosecutors in Michigan say, she could have stopped her son. Could have stopped him from committing the worst school shooting in Michigan's history. Testimony now continues today to decide if this mother should be held criminally responsible for what happened.

I'm Kate Bolduan with Sara Sidner and John Berman. This is "CNN News Central".

SIDNER: Any moment now, Donald Trump is expected to arrive at the federal courthouse in New York where closing arguments will begin this morning. Trump finally, and very briefly, took the stand for a very restricted testimony on Thursday, in just under five minutes. He denied Carroll's allegations, was scolded by the judge several times, and cross-examined.

After court, he, of course, took the Truth Social to say what he was not allowed to say on the stand.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND U.S. REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I have no idea who she is, where she came from. This is another scam. It's a political witch hunt. And somehow, we're going to have to fight this up.

The whole thing is a scam, and it's a shame, and it's a disgrace to our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: But that is not what a jury of his peers decided. Carroll is seeking $10 million in damages. The case could go to the jury by lunchtime today.

CNN's Kara Scannell is joining us now from outside the courthouse. Kara, can you give us some sense of what you are expecting to happen today?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, Sara. So, we just saw Trump's motorcade arrive at the courthouse. So, he has just gotten here, and he is here for closing arguments, that will get underway this morning, just around 9:30. First, E. Jean Carroll's attorneys will go, and they will try to appeal to the jury that she was harmed by Donald Trump's statements, and that she should get more than $10 million in damages.

Next up, it will be Trump's attorney's turn. They have argued that any harm E. Jean Carroll faced was not Donald Trump's fault and perhaps even one of her own making, by going public with these allegations and by people who just felt that they were responding on their own, that it was not tied to the former president's remarks.

So, they will both have about an hour to make their case to the jury. Then the judge will explain to the jury what the law is, and then the jury will get the case and begin their deliberations. You know, the case ending yesterday with Donald Trump on the witness stand. Before he took the stand, E. Jean Carroll's attorneys had played excerpts from a videotaped deposition where Trump was actually making a lot of these statements that he's wanted to say in court but hasn't been able to. Saying, that he thought she was a wacko, that she was mentally ill, that she made up this story.

So, they heard that first, and then Trump took the stand after his lawyers discussed back and forth with the judge for about 10 minutes about what exactly they could ask him, because the judge really wanted to limit this to this question of harm, not re litigating the assault or the defamation claim.

So, once Donald Trump was on the stand, he was only on for about three minutes. His lawyer asked him, do you stand by your testimony in the deposition? Trump said, 100 percent yes. She also asked him, did you ever instruct anyone to hurt Ms. Carroll in your statements? Trump said, no. I just wanted to defend myself, my family, and frankly, the presidency.

Now, the drug -- the judge struck the second half of that answer telling the jury just to listen to the part where he said, no. He really wanted to try to prevent this from turning into a circus. Donald Trump, again, was on the stand for just about three minutes before it was over and then he left and took to the -- his public -- his Truth social statements in order to make the comments that he wanted to make that he couldn't make before the jury. Sara.

SIDNER: No doubt her attorneys are looking at this and wondering if he still continues to defame her. We will be watching this case to see when the jury gets it, and if there's a decision potentially today. Thank you so much, Kara Scannell, outside of the courtroom there.

John.

[09:05:00]

BERMAN: Yes, Kara does such a great job going in and out of the courtroom.

SIDNER: I know. I know.

BERMAN: She's there, she's watching, she's writing during the trial, and she runs out and tells us what happens.

SIDNER: Yes. It's amazing.

BERMAN: It's really, really terrific reporting.

New this morning, backlash. The Republican National Committee is withdrawing a proposal that would have crowned Donald Trump as the presumptive Republican nominee, even though, so far, only two states have held their contest. The reversal comes after the RNC faced major criticism for the draft resolution. So, Trump was initially on board but then he told supporters he wanted to beat Nikki Haley, "The old- fashioned way."

CNN's Alayna Treene is in Washington this morning with the latest on this. Alayna.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: Well, good morning, John. You're right. So, Donald Trump and his campaign were initially on board with this draft resolution, we're told, until they started to see the backlash that it was garnering. But part of the reason they were initially in support of it is because it would greatly benefit Donald Trump if this were to be approved. Not only would he be declared the presumptive nominee by the RNC, but it would also allow him access and to benefit, really, from their ground game strategy and their data operation, as well as from fundraising on the trail with the RNC.

But they shifted their tune after they saw the immense backlash that this draft resolution was receiving, especially after it began circling -- circulating in the media. Trump allies were reaching out, saying that they were concerned about this angering a lot of Republicans, and really showing that maybe Trump was trying to stack the deck against Nikki Haley.

And I have to say, you know, this is a very unusual thing that the RNC was considering. We know that their policy is to remain neutral. And there is still another Republican in this primary, Nikki Haley. And so, for them to come out and really try to, you know, already declare that Donald Trump would be the presumptive nominee was a bit, you know, a departure from that policy. But look, after Donald Trump issued that statement on social media, saying that this isn't necessary, and we want to win this at the ballot box. We did see David Bossie, a fierce trump ally who initially proposed this resolution withdraw it.

BERMAN: Yes, it's hard to imagine Bossie would have done it without Trump's Permission to begin with.

TREENE: Right.

BERMAN: But then he withdrew it after Trump weighed in a second time. So, two things seem to be true here, Alayna, which is number one, Republicans -- insiders on Capitol Hill are lining up behind Donald Trump.

TREENE: Right.

BERMAN: Number two, there are people in Congress, Republicans in Congress, concerned that Trump at the top of the ticket might hurt their chances for retaking the Senate. Explain.

TREENE: Yes, well, that's actually been a concern for a while. We've done a lot of reporting on this. I mean, Donald Trump did face that massive debacle in 2022 when many Trump-backed candidates who he had pushed for the Senate ended up collapsing in a general, and that's something that a lot of people want to avoid.

Yes, people on Capitol Hill, but also conservative groups and donors off the Hill. We know, and this is from our new reporting today with my colleague, Fredreka Schouten (ph), that many of these groups, particularly those who are backing Nikki Haley, are very concerned about what having Donald Trump potentially at the top of the ticket could mean for these down ballot races.

We talked to one group, the Americans for Prosperity Action, it's a Koch-backed group, that is putting a lot of money behind Nikki Haley, but they told us that their actually main goal is to invest in the 2024 congressional races, particularly in the Senate. I'm just going to quick read you a quote from what their spokesperson told us. He said, "If ultimately -- if Trump is ultimately the nominee, the threat of a repeat of the last three elections and a Democratic sweep increases dramatically. Making the Senate and the House that much more important."

And that is really what this comes down to. We've seen Donald Trump impact these down ballot races in the past, not necessarily in the Senate's favor, something many congressmen and outsiders blame Donald Trump for. And so that's really what a lot of these groups are trying to avoid in 2024.

BERMAN: All right. Alayna Treene, great to see you. Have a great weekend. Thank you very much.

Sara?

SIDNER: Well, Donald Trump is not the Republican presidential nominee yet, but he has already jumped into the middle of Congress's fight over the border, and that is infuriating some GOP senators who say he's handing a gift to Democrats by blocking a bipartisan border deal.

CNN's Lauren Fox is on Capitol Hill. Lauren, what are you hearing about this? This has been a huge issue for Donald Trump. Why doesn't he want it fixed?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, this isn't the first time that former president Donald Trump has stood in the way of a bipartisan immigration deal emerging from the United States Senate. If you remember back in 2018, when he was the president, they were on the cusp of a deal, and he moved forward with campaigning against it, with lobbying members of Congress to vote against it. So, this is nothing new for some of those members.

[09:10:00]

And because of that reality, many of them are deeply frustrated about Donald Trump imposing himself in what they view is the best opportunity that Congress has had in decades to do anything on the border. Specifically, the reality that Democrats have come far in their direction in order to try and get something done ahead of the election.

Now, there's no doubt that doing something on the border could give Biden something to point to as a potential victory on the campaign trail. But a lot of Republicans say, you know, we should not be prioritizing Donald Trump's election over the betterment of the country. If this does something to make the country safer and better, then lawmakers should be voting yes for it.

And you saw yesterday some of that frustration boiling over. Here's Senator Thom Tillis, who said he will support Donald Trump if he is the nominee, but he just has a different opinion right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): I think this is when members of the Senate have to show some courage and do something that at the end of the day will be very helpful to President Trump. I hope that we have these tools available so that he can do what he demonstrated in 2017. He couldn't when he was expressing frustration over the lack of the very provisions that we're trying to get into law.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOX: Now, Sara, bill text is not out. We expected that could be released as early as next week, according to negotiators and Senate leadership. But one thing is very clear. A lot of Republicans believe that some of the discontentment with this emerging deal has nothing to do with the policy. In fact, one Republican senator made this point to me yesterday, saying that if this deal were to come forward and Donald Trump had nothing to do with it, and they believed this could have gotten near unanimous Republican support. Sara?

SIDNER: Wow. This seems like really a case of politics over people. We will -- I know you will be watching it and we will be checking in with you. Lauren Fox, thank you, from Capitol Hill for us.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Let's talk more about this. Joining us now is a former Republican congressman from South Carolina, also the former Republican governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford. It's good to see you, Congressman and Governor. Let's set the table. You're a conservative.

MARK SANFORD, (R) FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE AND (R) FORMER SOUTH CAROLINA GOVERNOR: Yes, ma'am.

BOLDUAN: You've been in Republican politics for a long time and you know Capitol Hill. What do you see in what is happening in the Senate right now as Lauren Fox was just laying it out?

SANFORD: Frustration, to you -- to the point that was just made, which is you get close on, you know, legislation that's been long anticipated and long talked about. And yet somebody who's not there at the playing field or, you know, in the playing field or there at the table says, no, I don't like it. That -- that's something that tends to irk people that are at the table and that's what's going on right now.

BOLDUAN: How do they get through it?

SANFORD: You know, bravery, because again everybody's skittish about Trump's base, which is why you see the alignment that you see within both House and Senate members disproportionately going toward Trump. So, there's this juxtaposition between --

BOLDUAN: And the question is, where is the bravery?

SANFORD: -- legislation --

BOLDUAN: Where is the bravery, right? Because here's the -- here's some truth, policy --

SANFORD: Well, good luck finding it. BOLDUAN: Well, that's exactly -- that's what I'm getting at. Because, the truth is --

SANFORD: OK.

BOLDUAN: -- policy decisions are made for political reasons all the time. Always. Maybe.

SANFORD: Sure.

BOLDUAN: Just to be a little bit cynical. But this -- but not something like this. I mean, you have folks who say -- I mean, honestly, it's like, we have been screaming from the rooftops about a border crisis for a long time. We're going to get so much of what we have been fighting for on the border very soon, and now we're going to spike this to make sure the other side doesn't get credit, even though we would also be getting credit. I mean, who's being played for a fool here?

SANFORD: Again, I haven't seen the base language of the text. I don't know what's in it and what's not in it. I just know that the overall process, which is what you see right now playing out, wherein people spend a lot of time, a lot of hours, a lot of weeks, a lot of months, working on some piece of legislation, and then inevitably some third- party group or some outside player says, no, I don't like it. That yields frustration. That much I know.

BOLDUAN: You paid a price losing your congressional seat in 2018 for standing up to Donald Trump. That is what clearly people are afraid -- maybe not losing their seat, but that is what folks are afraid of in the Senate, Republicans, for why this isn't --

SANFORD: No, I mean --

BOLDUAN: -- going to happen.

SANFORD: -- to your point, I mean the former --

BOLDUAN: Do you think the price is as high for people today?

SANFORD: No, I think it's dissipated. I mean, the four of us who spoke out early against Trump are all gone. So, Corker and Flake in the Senate, me and Amash in the House, gone. The -- you know, he was at the apex of political power at that time. That's no longer the case. And you see a further weakening based on what we saw playing out in New Hampshire or, you know, Nikki's nipping in his heels. You see that with the court situation that was just described in the earlier segment.

[09:15:00]

I mean, so he's not where he was, but he's still awfully strong. And the base is there with him. And in Republican Party and Democratic Party politics, one of the rules of the thumb is never go against your base. And that's why you see political figures reacting as they are. BOLDUAN: Let's talk South Carolina politics now and presidential politics. Donald Trump has -- it's been described as like an avalanche of endorsements from electeds (ph) in South Carolina heading into the primary there. You're -- you know all of the players involved. And it's really interesting, I was just looking back at kind of the history of it, right? When you left the governor's mansion in 2011, Nikki Haley came in as the next governor.

When you -- when she appointed Tim Scott to the Senate, you then won the House seat that he vacated. You know everyone involved here. First and foremost, what do you think of Tim Scott's endorsement --

SANFORD: It's all a big family, yes.

BOLDUAN: It's a real happy family. What do you think of Tim Scott's endorsement of Trump? Not Haley.

SANFORD: Again, everybody has different motivations. And again, I think the obvious one on the wall, I don't know this for a fact, in fairness to Tim, but the obvious one on the wall would be, wait a minute, you could end up vice president of the United States given Trump has momentum and given the fact that he's going to need a vice president.

That would be, I think, maybe the cynic's thought. The other would be, he likes, as he said when he was called upon in that awfully weird exchange there on Tuesday night, I love you more than I love Nikki. I'll let you decide which one it is.

BOLDUAN: Nikki Haley has been facing calls from Republicans to drop out. We were talking at the top of the show about this strange RNC draft resolution declaring Trump the presumptive nominee and then it gets pulled. Let me just ask you this, why should she? Why would she drop out? She has the money. That's the reason people end their campaigns if they run out of money. Do you think she should drop out now?

SANFORD: No, but two thoughts here. One is, there's always a tension between money. It's easy to -- for people who are not in the arena to say, keep going and you'll have money to that effect, and she certainly has that, and your own political capital, which takes years to build.

And so, I suspect there's, at some point, be -- going to be a calibration wherein, yes, I have the money, but if I get trounced in a state like South Carolina, my home state, does it bode well for me in terms of another presidential races or other political prospects? So, I think you have that tension.

The other thing that's interesting that people forget is this is not a new play. This is an old play out of their playbook, the Trump Camp. In that if you look at the South Carolina primary last go round, four years ago, even though South Carolina has historically prided itself in first in the South, they said, we're not going to do a Republican primary. We won't even allow another voice, another electoral contest against Trump in South Carolina. And that was the last presidential primary season.

So, this is not a new thing. It didn't work in this case. But if they can, sort of, slide one that direction, they will go all day long and they did it four years ago.

BOLDUAN: Given your history in standing up to Donald Trump and what you've said about him, do you think Vicky Haley would be a better president than Donald Trump?

SANFORD: Yes. Again, I think Donald Duck would be a better president than Donald Trump, with all due respect. I mean, I like some of his policies. I like where he's pushed back on this open border, which has been a disaster for this country. But you know, he has been the king of debt. He has not stood up on debt and deficit spending that I think so critical to the trajectory of our country. And he has been, you know, not a great dislocator in terms of politics, but a dislocator in terms of crazy fractions coming against each other in the body politic. And I think he's dumbed down the political debate and I think that's a problem.

BOLDUAN: Mark Sanford, good to see you. Thanks for coming in.

SANFORD: Yes.

SIDNER: Great interview, Kate. You heard it here. Mark Sanford, Donald Duck over Donald Trump.

All right. Coming up, new this morning, Israel in front of the International Court on Justice for the war in Gaza. What the judge said about accusations that the IDF has committed genocide.

Right now, the mother of that Oxford High School shooter is back in court after an emotional first day of testimony. Her lawyer is arguing she had no idea her husband had bought a gun for their teenager.

Also, King Charles, who's admitted to the hospital this morning for a scheduled procedure. What we're hearing from the royal family. That's all ahead.

[09:20:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIDNER: All right. New this morning, the International Court of Justice, also known as the U.N.'s top court says, Israel must act immediately to ensure its forces prevent genocide in Gaza. Here is some of their ruling.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUDGE JOAN DONOGHUE, PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE: In the court's view, at least some of the acts and omissions alleged by South Africa to have been committed by Israel in Gaza appear to be capable of falling within the provisions of the convention.

(END VIDEO CLIP) SIDNER: So, you heard her say, appear to be capable of falling within the provisions of the convention.

CNN's Melissa Bell is live at The Hague with more on this. Melissa, can you, sort of, walk us through the wording here, which is very important, and the reactions? There is -- there are now a lot of people reacting to this.

[09:25:00]

MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Reacting, I think, really strongly, Sara, just because this reading went so much further than I think many of us who've been watching these proceedings over the last couple of weeks thought that they would. These were fairly unanimous decisions, all bar one or two of the judges rooting in favor of these six measures that do stop short of calling for an immediate ceasefire. And I think that, to the South Africans who had brought this case, is a disappointment. They had hoped it would go so far.

And yet, when you consider the six immediate measures that this court has ruled in favor of. And again, Sara, I think it's important to remember, these are preliminary emergency measures that South Africa had been requesting the International Criminal -- the International Court of Justice to take in order that the war in Gaza ceased so that these events could be investigated and the more substantive allegations be pursued by this court. That will happen, but it could take years for this court to decide on the question of whether or not genocide has been committed inside Gaza.

Meanwhile though, those six measures, extremely significant, because whilst they stop short of calling for a ceasefire, they do call for the immediate end of the killing or causing serious bodily or mental harm to the Palestinian people, which this court has recognized are a protected people. And that is extremely significant. It does go in the direction of the South Africans, and yet have a listen to what South Africa's foreign minister had to say in response and an acknowledgement of their disappointment that the court didn't go so far as to call for an immediate ceasefire.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NALEDI PANDOR, SOUTH AFRICAN FOREIGN MINISTER: I believe that in exercising the order, there would have to be a ceasefire. Without it, the order doesn't actually work. I would have wanted a ceasefire.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BELL: Now, the word ceasefire, of course, never mentioned. And yet the order that has been made here by the court does pile huge pressure on Israel, not only to report back on what's happening and what measures it's taken to prevent the further committing of acts, the killings that I mentioned a moment ago. That significant pressure on Israel, we had been very curious as we heard the pro-Palestinian protesters here shout, as we heard those measures pronounced very much favorable to what they heard. Almost surprised that the court had gone so far in their direction. This is what Benjamin Netanyahu had to say a moment ago in a short video message that was released in the wake of the ruling.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: Israel has an inherent right to defend itself. The vile attempt to deny Israel this fundamental right is blatant discrimination against the Jewish state, and it was justly rejected. The charge of genocide leveled against Israel is not only false, it's outrageous, and decent people everywhere should reject it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BELL: So, a good deal of outrage there coming from Israel in the wake of that ruling, and yet, part of the ruling that we heard here today in The Hague is that there is plausibility when it comes to the possibility that genocidal acts are being committed inside Gaza. And that, in terms of the weight of public opinion and the pressure that is likely to be put on Israel, I think, Sara, for it to change at least the way that it is waging this war is going to be significant.

SIDNER: Yes, it's significant. It's unusual. It's also, we should mention, that we're hearing a lot of the protests behind you. And we're seeing the -- a sizable protest outside of The Hague this morning in the Netherlands there as well. Melissa Bell, thank you for breaking all that down for us. It's a complicated stuff, but it is very clear where these judges are going. Appreciate it.

John.

BERMAN: All right. While this is happening, this morning, we're learning new details about a phone call between President Biden and the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. CNN Political and Global Affairs Analyst Barak Ravid is with us now. He's also a politics and foreign policy reporter for Axios. And Barak, this is your reporting, I woke up to it. What did you learn about this phone call?

BARAK RAVID, CNN POLITICAL AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST AND POLITICS AND FOREIGN POLICY REPORTER, AXIOS: Well, I think this phone call was very interesting because it showed us how much President Biden and his team and the White House are nervous about this war going on for much longer when you take into consideration that we are in an election year.

And Biden told Netanya in the phone call last Friday that he's not in it for a year of war in Gaza, meaning a war that started in October 2023 that might reach October 2024 and the U.S. presidential election. And what I heard from several of Biden aids is that they see how this war affects them when it comes to, especially young voters in America, and that every day that the Gaza war is still dominating the news is a political damage for Biden's presidential campaign.

[09:30:00]