Return to Transcripts main page

CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt

Homan In Minneapolis: "Staying "Til The Problem's Gone"; Trump Doesn't Call On Noem In Cabinet Meeting & Doesn't Take Questions; Video Shows Pretti & Fed Agents Clashing 11 Days Before Shooting. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired January 29, 2026 - 16:00   ET

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

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: -- as fires continue to burn in the area.

[16:00:03]

Hopefully, they get them all under control. You see Kevin there headed for koala party late in the night, having a good time. Thanks so much for joining us.

THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT starts right now

KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: Hi, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. Welcome to THE ARENA. It's good to have you with us on this Thursday.

For the first time, we are hearing directly from the White House border czar Tom Homan as he takes over federal immigration operations in Minnesota.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM HOMAN, BORDER CZAR: I'm staying until the problem's gone. But we've made a lot of progress, a lot of progress in the last three days.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Homan today sounding very different from other White House officials. He complimented his meetings with state and local leaders. He said he wanted to listen to the community, and he acknowledged that things in Minneapolis need to change.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOMAN: I didn't come here looking for photo ops or headlines. I come here looking for solutions. I do not want to hear that everything's been done here has been perfect. Nothing's ever perfect. Anything be improved on. And what we've been working on is making this operation safer, more efficient by the book.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: That's shift in tone and really shift in subject matter. Absent from President Donald Trump's first cabinet meeting of the year. Trump today not addressing Minnesota, not taking questions, and not calling on Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to speak.

So, the question now whether Homan's new tone will result in new tactics and less chaos on the ground.

All of this as we get new videos showing a previous confrontation between federal agents and Alex Pretti, what you're about to see. It was taken about a week and a half before Pretti was shot and killed by CBP agents.

So here, you see Pretti shouting at an SUV that's carrying agents, and then he kicks the vehicles tail light twice, and it breaks. A federal agent confronts Pretti, and at one point in the ensuing struggle, a gun appears to be visible, holstered in the back of his waistband. A representative for the Pretti family confirmed to CNN that this is Alex. DHS says that they are reviewing the footage.

We're going to show you another angle of the same incident, one with sound. It captures a little bit more of just how chaotic the scene was

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)

HUNT: So, you see Pretti tackled by a federal agent as other officers attempt to gain control of the situation. As they do so, they deploy what appears to be tear gas and pepper balls. Eventually, the agents got back into their vehicles, and they left without arresting Pretti.

Now, President Trump has posted and reposted the first video that we showed you a sign that he clearly thinks it helps his administration's efforts to control the narrative around Pretti's death.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR JACOB FREY (D), MINNEAPOLIS, MN: Are we actually making the argument that Alex Pretti should be killed for something that happened like 11 days prior to the shooting itself? No, I think we should be talking about the circumstances that actually led to the killing and what took place, and those circumstances. I mean, you can believe your own two eyes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: All right, let's get off the sidelines, head into THE ARENA. My panel is here, but we're first joined by CNN senior crime and justice correspondent Shimon Prokupecz. He's in Minneapolis. And CNN chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller.

Shimon, first to you, you attended the Tom Homan news conference this morning. What did you take away from that?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: I mean, like you said, Kasie, it was so different. I've been to other Tom Homan press conferences, and you could just feel the difference in how sort of almost quiet he was. And it was almost like a somber tone to it, just in the calm way in which he was delivering the changes that he was hoping to bring here to Minneapolis. Of course, a lot of it focusing really on the tactics and de-

escalation, and you can start to feel it here in some ways on the streets, you know, not as many people having the same concern, the chats that many of the observers you can follow along in, you're not seeing as much activity in those. So you're starting to see some signs that there's that visibility of agents. And federal law enforcement is not here.

We'll see if that continues. It certainly good news for the people who live here. They want them all gone totally. But Homan indicated that that's not going to happen. They're not surrendering.

But what they're going to do is they're going to have more targeted enforcement, which is what ICE and the enforcement removal operations part of ICE that do this kind of work have done for years.

[16:05:13]

And they're going to go back to looking at those and solely focusing on those.

And the other thing really, you know, let's remember how we got here. And, you know, Homan did not want to address that, you know, for a week and months, really, we had heard from Greg Bovino, who was the face, the face of the immigration operation throughout this country, from California to Chicago to here, and said to his officers and his agents that they could do no wrong and that the mission is the mission and that we go and we go.

Today, we heard a different message and that things have not been perfect. The administration now realizing that

HUNT: So, John, I want to come back with you to this newly obtained video of Alex Pretti. Now, again, this was a clash. That was 11 days before he was shot and killed. Of course, later, in a separate incident I think my question for you is, you know, we're seeing these agents doing things that don't seem familiar to what we see from our usual police forces in the streets, right? And they get into this confrontation with him. They take some crowd control measures, then they get back into the car.

What do you take away from how you saw Alex Pretti in that particular incident? What crimes, if any, did he commit and what would have been the proper response in that moment? Sort of the usual protocol for handling a situation like that? And did we see that play out or did we not?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: So it's a fascinating videotape and all those regards, when you look at that tape, first, what you see is a failure of arrest and control tactics, right? Do they have a reason to stop him? Do they have a reason to have a reason to take him into custody? Yes.

He kicks their car. He breaks their taillight. That's Title 18. U.S. Code, Section 111. Damaging federal property, interfering, impeding or assaulting federal agents in the course of their duty. And yet you have four or five agents trying to take one guy into custody for a legitimate arrestable offense.

And what two things do not occur? One, they rough him up, but what doesn't occur is they do not arrest him, and they apparently do not detect that he is carrying a loaded firearm in the small of his back in a holster. That's a tactical failure on a number of levels.

And it raises this other question, which is, look, you raised this important point, Kasie, in policing, we know that you don't have to use physical force to effect an arrest. But if you do use physical force, then you better affect that arrest. Otherwise, you can't justify why you rough somebody up on the street and just left them there.

The question that's hanging is, are any of these the same agents who, 11 days later encountered him in that next encounter where he ends up being shot and killed? Did they have some grudge or gripe against him that they'd been seething about over that time? And that's an answer we don't know, because we've had very little light shed into the investigation. Even what form it's taking into the shooting that took Pretti's life.

HUNT: And, John, I mean, to that point, I mean, you seem to be saying that its possible that a individual agent or a couple of individual agents might have recognized him because they were part of the same set of encounters. Is there any reason to think that if it was two totally separate groups of agents, and yet his name lands on this list, that they would have any idea that they were dealing with someone that DHS had encountered before?

MILLER: It would be possible, but that would mean that they would have had to study the list, and it would have had to have an accompanying photograph. When you look at the first incident, what they're angry about and what they're acting on is obvious. He broke the taillight of their car. And, you know cursed at them, gave them the finger spit at their vehicle.

But the property damage, that's the thing that that is the real violation here. If you're going to make an arrest, which they did not do. In the second instance, the question you have to ask is there -- in this case, they're trying to take him into custody is proportionate.

In the incident where he's killed, it appears to be disproportionate. Meaning why are they putting pepper spray in his face point blank, spraying him because he's trying to assist a woman who was thrown into the snow by another agent. You wonder why are they so focused him in that next incident? And one of the questions that we're going to have to get an answer to is, were any of the same people from the first incident involved in the second incident?

HUNT: All right. John Miller, Shimon Prokupecz, thank you both very much for being here today. Really appreciate it.

My panel is here in THE ARENA.

[16:10:00] CNN legal analyst, former federal prosecutor Elliot Williams, CNN special correspondent Jamie Gangel, CNN political commentator, former DOJ official Xochitl Hinojosa, former Republican speaker pro tempore, Patrick McHenry.

Thank you all very much for being here. Really appreciate it.

Elliot Williams -- I mean, I want to expand a little bit on what John Miller was saying, because I feel like it's important for us to understand kind of what should have been done in each of these instances. Although, of course, I think the broader conversation we're also going to have is this is going to impact the political debate in ways rational and not.

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes.

HUNT: But what would you add to kind of what John was explaining there? Because, I mean, you would expect if somebody kicked out the tail light of a police vehicle, that perhaps you'd be arrested for that. And that seems like it would have been the proper thing for them to do, and yet they don't.

WILLIAMS: Yeah. Two things can be true at the same time. Someone could have improperly and violently damaged a police car, and also that police, on a separate occasion, had no basis for using lethal force against him. And I think it's -- there's this rush to conflate the two things that because this individual did or is seen doing something bad on a totally separate occasion, that somehow that justified the lethal force that they used 11 days later. They're separate incidents.

And I'm not pooh-pooing or making excuses for his conduct 11 days before. You see the video, too, that's bad conduct. But that doesn't justify the use of lethal force, at least in terms of what we've seen and what we know to sort of is evident from that, from the ultimate shooting.

HUNT: Right. Well, I mean, Jamie, John Miller raising the question of, well, were these some of the similar agents that they recognized him? It's, you know, it's impossible to answer that question right now, in part because were getting very little information about this investigation from the federal government. Right?

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: We don't know yet. We also know that every day there are incidents that have hopefully been handled well and proportionately. And we've seen way too many incidents where it wasn't.

Can I just go back to Tom Homan's press conference for one second?

HUNT: Of course, yeah.

GANGEL: Because I think one of the questions after today will be, yes, his tone was dramatically different. Will the action match the words? Tom Homan's been around for a long time. He knows how to read a room, but at the end of the day, the press conference happened for a political reason because President Trump knows he has a problem.

HUNT: Xochitl, I mean, expand on that one. One thing that is also interesting to me is that Senator Susan Collins today announced that ICE is leaving Maine. She's been urging Secretary Noem and others in the administration to get ICE to reconsider its approach to immigration enforcement in the state. I appreciate the secretary's willingness to listen and consider my recommendations and her personal attention to the situation in Maine.

I mean, that seems to underscore I mean, that is a state where they need to win a Senate race, that the politics are not good.

XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, and this shows that ICE enforcement is you can get rid of ICE agents if it is politically feasible, something that's good for the White House if they feel like they're getting political pressure. This is an instance where political pressure worked and they are somewhat scaling back in Minneapolis.

But what I'll also say is they're trying to solve a political problem, but they're not actually doing the investigations that are needed to find the root of the problem. They're not going in and having an investigation of the actual killing. In this matter or the Renee Good matter, we have yet to see an actual criminal civil rights investigation open in either matter. And also, Pam Bondi is still arresting people on the streets and saying that there will be more, right?

And so, they're simply going after people who are protesting, not investigating those U.S. citizens who were killed. And so, they don't -- they're not actually solving for the issue because they don't want to -- I don't think that they want to know the answers to these investigations.

HUNT: Congressman, what do you -- what do you get? What do you think is really going on here when you talk to your Republican colleagues? I mean, you're so well plugged in when you see what's happening here, it's a little bit hard to figure out. Like, is the president, has he turned on Kristi Noem? Has he not turned on Kristi Noem? Do they really see this as a political problem as Tom Homan being authentic?

Like, do they really feel like they have to they have been forced to change course because of the politics? Or is something else going on here.

PATRICK MCHENRY (R), FORMER SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE: Due to sloppiness, right? So this is -- this is a question of going in with federal law enforcement to enforce federal laws in areas where the state and localities refuse to comply and be of assistance in states where there are actually working together, where somebody gets picked up and its their third offense for some dramatic sort of serious felony. They call the federal government say, please pick up this illegal alien. We don't want to house them again. We don't want to put them through the system and have to pick them up a fourth time.

That would be a normative process. Most states like that. Most localities like that across the country. But what we have now is a confrontation around Minneapolis and Minnesota, where they refuse to enforce federal law or assist in the enforcement of federal law.

[16:15:01]

Now, what the Homan decision of sending Homan in is a very traditional Washington one, which is you're in charge. Everything's fine. You're still in charge. But meet your new boss, right? Everybody should be awake to the joke here.

(LAUGHTER)

HINOJOSA: She does not like --

MCHENRY: Well, but Secretary Noem has her style, and she's going to continue with her style. The president is not emphasizing her, but has sent in what he views as his strongest player when it comes to border security and a winning message for Trump, traditionally, that is unfortunately been weakened and watered down because of absolute sloppiness.

HUNT: Do you think that at this point immigration has become a liability for Republicans?

MCHENRY: It is not -- no longer a strength, right? And that is a dramatic thing because Donald Trump's number one thing from when he came down the staircase --

HUNT: Golden escalator.

MCHENRY: Yes. Thank you. Sorry.

HUNT: I was there. I remember it well.

MCHENRY: Was a big beautiful wall. And it was his emphasis on border security and his emphasis on border security. Took him to the White House. And this moment here has weakened what is a very powerful message. That is then, the concern on Capitol Hill.

My friends on Capitol Hill are worried because of sloppiness, not because of the policy intent of the administration of enforcing federal law.

The final thing I would mention on this to my friends on Capitol Hill is the reason why we have a mess on border security, on internal enforcement and immigration generally, because Congress hasn't done their job to fix immigration.

HUNT: I know, the number of -- the number of times we had I stood outside doors where there were gangs meeting on immigration over -- I don't even know how many years since the very first year I ever came to Washington.

MCHENRY: It's the same set of issues.

HUNT: It sure is. And here we are. All right. Coming up next here in THE ARENA, we've got new details on

that five year old boy who's being held in a Texas immigration facility. What two lawmakers are now saying after visiting him and his father in the new demands for his release.

But first, Democratic Senator Martin Heinrich is here live in THE ARENA. It looks like the government is potentially headed towards a partial shutdown after lawmakers block a funding bill in a battle over the president's immigration crackdown.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CORY BOOKER (D-NJ): If we do not check Donald Trump and this agency, the kind of horrors and tragedies were seeing in our country are just going to continue.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:21:47]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOOKER: ICE is reckless out of control, corrupt and cruel in their practices in a way that is stunning to all of us. I am tired of the complicity in Washington, where you have a Congress, Senate and House, being willing to bend the knee to Donald Trump and his will. We're seeing where that's getting us with people dying in our streets.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Right now, critical talks between the White House and Senate leaders on immigration enforcement reform are underway, with a Friday night government shutdown deadline rapidly approaching. All Senate Democrats today with the help of seven Republicans, blocked a massive spending package this afternoon as they seek to rein in ICE. President Trump, appearing hopeful earlier today that a deal could be reached.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think we're getting close. The Democrats, I don't believe, want to see it either. So, we'll work in a very bipartisan way, I believe, not to have a shutdown. We don't want a shutdown.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: All right. Joining us now in THE ARENA, Democratic senator from New Mexico, Martin Heinrich. He sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Senator Heinrich, very grateful to have you on the show today. Can you let us know? What are you hearing right now from your leaders, from other Democrats on Capitol Hill, in your role on the appropriations committee? Are you confident that you will get a deal with the White House that will rein in ICE somewhat and keep the government open?

SEN. MARTIN HEINRICH (D-NM): That's -- that's the question. I think what's important here is that 96 percent of these appropriations are bipartisan and uncontroversial. But when it comes to DHS, we have seen this incredible lawlessness out of Minnesota in particular. And there are many of us who believe it would be absolutely inconceivable that we would give immigration enforcement more money without those reforms.

We need a restoration of the rule of law within immigration enforcement. I want those folks to be focused on human traffickers, to be focused on cartel members, and absolutely not to be focused on a five-year-old kid like Liam Ramos.

HUNT: Senator, are you satisfied with what's on the table in terms of the reforms that could potentially be included in this funding package?

HEINRICH: Well, we'll have to see what actually we can get agreement on. And I'll be looking very closely at that. But it is obvious there are a lot of very common sense, just run of the mill. This is how law enforcement operates, kind of reforms that can be applied here.

There should never be the -- a -- no one should be able to enter someone's home without a judicial warrant. The masks need to come off the body. Cameras need to go on. They need to conduct themselves to the same code of conduct that all our local police departments and state police departments already abide by. This is -- this is not a big ask.

HUNT: Senator, one thing that we saw this morning was Tom Homan, the border czar in Minneapolis, almost seeming to be emotional, talking about some of the changes that were going to happen. My question to you about that is do you buy it? Do you think they're actually changing their tune.?

HEINRICH: From what I'm hearing on the ground from contacts in Minnesota and from my colleagues from Minnesota, is that on the streets? It still looks very much like it did before the weekend. And I think that should concern all of us.

HUNT: Sir, you, of course, are from a border state. You're familiar with the unique challenges that that brings and how it might be different than the interior of the country. There has been some focus also on border patrol and the tactics and background that that they have versus ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Do you have concerns about how border patrol has operated that are different from the concerns you might have about ICE?

HEINRICH: Well, what's important to understand here is that each of these agencies is trained to do different things. And so right now we have agencies and personnel operating in ways that they are not trained for crowd control, interaction with large crowds. That's not something that is part of the border patrol handbook. So, yeah, I have concerns because these law enforcement officers, even

the ones with the best of intentions, are operating in environments that they have not been suitably trained for.

HUNT: And the other piece of this, of course, that you're dealing with on the Hill, in terms of these, the C.R., and making sure that the government does stay open, that a C.R. could only go for a maximum of two weeks. Is that a red line for you

HEINRICH: I think that is far less important than what we eventually get to. We need real reforms in how this agency is operating. We need a restoration of the rule of law. That's what I'm looking for.

HUNT: Sir, one piece of this conversation that is starting to happen, as we understand what's going on in Minneapolis, but also the presidents overall approval rating, some of the struggles there is that Democrats -- it's a long shot, but that some Democrats are starting to say, hey, we have a chance to take back the Senate. I know you've endorsed some of the progressive candidates in primaries.

I'm just interested to know, given the landscape here, the difficulty we've seen on the ground in Minneapolis, the emotions that are running high, can you help me understand. Talk a little bit about why you think those candidates are the best ones. When the stakes are so high?

HEINRICH: Well, I actually don't have a sort of a political lens that I look at candidates through. I look at how they match up to their state and how good are they at communicating with to meet the moment that we're in. And that's how I've chosen some of the people I'm supporting.

At the end of the day, after the primaries, I will support all of our Democratic candidates. But I think it's important that we have people who are truly in touch with this moment. This is not a run of the mill normal moment in history. This -- this is a time when our nation is being tested, and we need people who can meet that moment.

HUNT: What says to you that someone is able to meet it?

HEINRICH: I mean, you have to sort of watch how they campaign, watch how they're interacting with their constituents and how people respond to that.

HUNT: All right. New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich, very grateful to have you here, sir. I hope you'll come back.

HEINRICH: Look forward to it.

HUNT: All right. Thanks.

Coming up next here in THE ARENA, new charges just filed against the attack against Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. And the new reaction today from the House speaker to what the president said about the incident.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: I called her, as I do, any member who has a situation like that and talked with her briefly. I think she felt like she had adequate protection there, and she continued her town hall. So --

REPORTER: Trump suggested that she staged the attack on herself, though. Do you think that's appropriate?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)

[16:33:54]

HUNT: Breaking news, state charges have been filed against the man accused of attacking Congresswoman Ilhan Omar on Tuesday. Fifty-five- year-old Anthony Kazmierczak, now facing one felony count of terroristic threats and one count of assault. Just a few hours ago, federal charges were also filed against him for one count of assault.

The Minnesota Democrat, Ilhan Omar, was participating in a town hall when he is seen rushing the podium and spraying her with a substance we later learned to be apple cider vinegar. Federal court documents reveal he said, quote, "She's not resigning. You're splitting Minnesotans apart." And he walked away.

Omar, of course, has been an outspoken critic of the Trump administration's immigration operation in Minnesota and a frequent target of President Trump's.

The president was asked yesterday about the incident. He told ABC News, quote, "She probably had herself sprayed knowing her".

Now, House Speaker Mike Johnson was asked about the president's comments today. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Do you think Rep. Omar staged the attack on herself at the town hall?

[16:35:00]

JOHNSON: I don't have any evidence to believe that's true. Look, we deal with member security issues as they arise. I called her, as I do any member who has a situation like that and talked with her briefly. I think she felt like she had adequate protection there. And she continued her town hall. So --

REPORTER: Trump suggested that she staged the attack on herself, though. Do you think that's appropriate?

JOHNSON: I haven't seen any evidence to that. And we need all members to be careful. It's a dangerous time. (END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: All right. My panel is back here.

Congressman McHenry, I mean, this has become -- I mean, look, federal charges were immediately filed here. The -- this is an unfortunate additional entry on a long list of incidents where members of Congress from, of course, and our political figures, the president, of course, in Butler, Pennsylvania, was shot at, that says something about where we are.

What does it say to you that the president suggested it was staged?

MCHENRY: Look, it's President Trump. He's going to -- he's making these comments and the -- since he's arrived on the scene, it's been me that gets questioned about his comments. So, ask him about his comments. That's really my -- now that I'm out of office, I'm confident enough to say that.

But having been through so many town hall meetings, these things are dumpster fires in good times, and we're not in good times. These are not exactly easy situations to be put in. If you watch the video, the striking about this situation was that Representative Omar didn't flinch, it was another day in the park.

So, I mean, kudos for her for being brave in that moment. The whole situation, though, on member safety and public safety now is of real consequence, a real consequence to our democracy and our form of government. And we need to make sure that all representatives, regardless of political persuasion, are safe.

WILLIAMS: And I would just say most people around the country, viewers, whatever else, don't know that most members of Congress actually don't have 24 hour security. And like you said at these events, that ought to be open to the public. That's sort of what the framers envisioned for members of Congress being able to speak to their constituents directly, but they're all exposed in all vulnerable and stuff like this seems to keep happening, at an alarming and quite tragic rate.

GANGEL: Look, ask Gabby Giffords, right? We have seen this over and over again. President Trump knows better. And to your point, you know, you say it's President Trump, but that's a problem because he's been the target, Charlie Kirk lost his life. Gabby Giffords going back.

You know, Representative Omar had she was actually on January 6th, she was taken with senior leadership in Congress to the safe place. They went to, because there have been so many threats against her.

So, I just think President Trump has to be called out for making light of something like this.

HINOJOSA: But it's also not in his DNA to call out violence against his enemies.

GANGEL: Right. That's right. HINOJOSA: And we saw this with Paul Pelosi. He went off to attack

Paul Pelosi. We saw this with Rob Reiner. He went off to attack Rob Reiner. We're seeing it with Ilhan Omar and Speaker Johnson also has a responsibility. His responsibility isn't to be the speaker and the friend of the president. His responsibility is to show leadership. When our president isn't showing leadership, and for other Republicans to do the same and actually speak out against the president and say, you know what? The president is wrong.

I feel like Democrats don't have a problem criticizing their own. But when it comes to Trump, the Republican Party has had problems criticizing their own.

MCHENRY: In fairness, the clip that we heard, Speaker Johnson rejected President Trump's claim twice in that video, and also has taken a herculean task that the House has taken -- a herculean task to ensure member safety, even when it's become politicized and it has become politicized about members security in the House of Representatives. I know very well about the details of that.

So, the fact that Speaker Johnson called Ilhan Omar, who has had no favorable words for Speaker Johnson or any Republican for that matter, but for him to do that shows that he's speaker of the house. This is a moment where you can be bipartisan and say those very brave things that he did something decent.

HINOJOSA: He did do something decent. I will say I would prefer for Republican members to say Donald Trump is wrong, and it is very hard for Republican members to do that, he said. I haven't seen evidence of that.

Nowhere -- I have not heard one Republican say that Donald Trump is wrong to say that. I haven't heard that about Paul Pelosi. I haven't heard that about Rob Reiner. I haven't heard that about anybody.

[16:40:00]

But I will tell you, I sat on a panel for three hours straight when Charlie Kirk died talking about his life. And I am a Democrat, because that was wrong.

And I wish the Republican Party would do the same and call out their leadership whenever they are wrong, in these instances.

HUNT: Congressman, when you say that the security in the House of Representatives has become politicized, what do you mean by that? What has happened that -- that lines up with all this?

MCHENRY: There's a threat assessment done for non-leadership members on whether or not they deserve security. It is a massive expense to provide somebody with security, is a very expensive thing for our government to provide folks with basic security given their position, much less those that are on target lists.

And the target lists are because they have a number of threats that have been -- that law enforcement had to take action on. And so, this happens from time to time. And it is debated among appropriators and within different factions of both parties on whether or not somebody deserves their 24/7 or partial security detail.

HUNT: Fascinating.

All right. Up next here, ahead in THE ARENA, the new demands for the Trump administration to release a five-year-old boy from immigration detention.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOAQUIN CASTRO (D-TX): Tough time there. I'm very concerned about his health, about his well-being. I demanded his immediate release. And I think that's what the country demands is that he be released immediately.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:45:53]

(BEGIN VIDE CLIP)

CASTRO: I had a chance to visit with he and his father for about 30 minutes in the -- you know, in the courtroom, they have there and Liam didn't wake up the whole time and, you know, his father said that he'd been sleeping a lot, that he's been very depressed, that he's asking for his mom. I'm very concerned about his health, about his well- being.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: That was Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro telling CNN about his visit to the Texas detention center, where five-year-old Liam Ramos and his father, who were taken into ICE custody nine days ago, are being held. Liam is pictured here during the congressman's visit. He's been lethargic and despondent and not eating well. His father told Castro.

Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, who visited alongside Castro, had this to share about the conditions within the facility.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JASMINE CROCKETT (D-TX): I've been into jails and prisons, but I've never had to see children that way. They consistently talked about the water and how awful it was. And they said that the water makes them sick.

They gave us these beautiful pamphlets. More beautiful than anything that we have in our office. And they gave us a layout, and they said the average person is there for 28 days. We did not meet anyone who had actually been detained for less than two months.

(END VIDEO CLIP) HUNT: All right. Joining us now, CNN senior political and global affairs analyst, former mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel.

Sir, thanks very much for being here. It's always great to have you.

Although, of course, the story, the stories today have been really tough. And this picture of Liam with his father, and the contrast between the boy, that's his school picture, but the one where he's laying in his arms in this detention center and is such a contrast from this kid we see right here, right with the blue rabbit ears on his way home from school. People also said, you know, and this is him today, right? Or a few days ago, once he's in this detention center.

What's your reaction to an image like this? And, I mean, what does it say about where we are?

RAHM EMANUEL, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL & GLOBAL AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR: I mean, Kasie, everybody's having the same image of this because we as a country have lost our way. This is in a context of what people have seen over the last two weeks on the streets of Minneapolis.

I mean, take a step back and think about this. You have border agents in Minneapolis and Minneapolis borders Saint Paul, Minnesota. Border agents are trained to be on America's border, not in a city that borders another American city.

You have law enforcement agencies. As I said to you before, once that is acting like a lawless mob. The fact is, the department -- the Drug Enforcement Agency, DEA, ATF, Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, they don't wear masks. FBI, they don't wear masks. State and local police officers, they don't wear masks.

ICE doesn't have to wear a mask. They decided to do this to be something else. The whole operation was supposed to be about our border or a criminal, undocumented, illegal immigrant. And this taking a five-year-old and his father, shooting U.S. citizens on the street -- it's all lost its way.

Now, across American cities, local law enforcement is working with the Drug Enforcement Agency. They're working with the ATF on either guns, drugs or gangs and using them. And local -- and prosecutors are working with the federal partners.

The way ICE is operating is exactly what the mayor said. And the governor said, it's an occupying force, and it's going to harm us when something real happens, because there\s no trust now. And the president's operation has lost its way and its actually harming America rather than securing it.

HUNT: So, Mr. Mayor, again, I sometimes struggle with the title of yours to apply to any given question. In this case, I think it's to the former chief of staff.

You've been in the White House where tough decisions have to be made, where perhaps you feel mistakes been made. They need to be fixed. Can you take us inside, you know, what -- what you're seeing in the decision making coming out of the White House right now?

[16:50:03]

I mean, it was interesting to watch a cabinet meeting that was much shorter than previous cabinet meetings where the secretary of homeland security was not called upon to speak. Do you think there is an understanding of the depth or a depth of the crisis that they have on their hands? How do you interpret what we're seeing?

EMANUEL: Well, I think there's an understanding or an appreciation now, they got a political problem, but they have more than a political problem. It's a political problem wrapped in actually a -- the wrapping is one of actually lost direction to a policy.

And so, I don't think in this White House, yes, they know they have a political problem. They're going to try to sweeten it out. They have a problem that's going to reemerge.

The same person that was sent to Minneapolis was called in front of a federal judge in the city of Chicago for lying, and they sent him up to Minneapolis. This was designed for this reaction. They're going to have to rethink, not just change the way the budget works or the appropriations rethink what they're going to do, or this will be repeated in another city.

The president has lost the American people and lost the consensus on the two things that mattered confronting illegal immigration, illegal crossing of the border, and the fact that an illegal immigrant has a criminal record and is serving time to get him out of the country. So, they're not repeating any crimes on the streets of Chicago. That's where it begins. That's where it's end. And that's all it should be done.

They went overboard here and more than just overboard. They were trying to do something and they and they got caught. They were actually looking for this reaction. And it backflipped on them.

And I also think this is a case where a law enforcement has become a lawless mob and nobody's directing it. And so when I look at this, the chief of staff, somebody needs to walk in the oval office like I did many times. And my predecessors did and said, this has to cease and desist or you're going to lose all support and start talking truth to power rather than letting the president act like an erratic president on this issue.

I think there are three things you got to remember in a wider lens for the White House right now. The three C's corruption, cruelty and chaos. Chaos you saw in Greenland. Corruption you see every day where the parts of the administration are being sold to the highest bidder for the president's own wealth and his family's own wealth. And the cruelty of taking a five year old off the streets on his way to school and send him to a detention center in Texas.

All three C's apply to this administration the corruption, the cruelty and the chaos. And the American people are rejecting it.

HUNT: I want to bring the panel back into this conversation.

Congressman McHenry. This photograph of Liam with his dad in this detention center, you know, going to be one of the images that's remembered from this. Do you think the administration should let Liam go home?

MCHENRY: Well --

HUNT: To his home in Minneapolis?

MCHENRY: Where does he go? Because his father was the provider there, and that's the reason why --

HUNT: Well, they had people there that were trying to let him --

MCHENRY: Yes, but are they legal? Are they legally able to take him? Does he have another person in the family that is directly, legally entitled to be a parent or guardian of them? How do we deal with this when there are other legal cases?

So, this is a horrible picture for the administration's process and procedure on internal enforcement of immigration laws. When we're talking about border security, there's massive support for real border security and being tough at the border. There's massive public support for going after criminal gang elements that are illegal and deporting them. But on this, when you talk about the sensitivities of home is a very different set of optics, a very different set of concerns, and you have to be truly heartless to not have that image touch you in a real way.

HINOJOSA: Yeah. And there's an asylum application that is pending for this father and the son. And he does have a mother back in Minnesota.

I spoke with someone right before I got on the show. Was that who was there? And they were talking about not only the water, but that there's worms in the food. And mothers were talking about that, that if they wanted clean water, they had to purchase it for $30. That multiple kids are sick and some of them have been throwing up blood.

That a lot of kids, what you're seeing with Liam, that is not the only kid who is sleeping all day. There are multiple children sleeping all day. Whether it be depression, whether it be the medication that they're giving them, whether it's -- they're sick because of the food, I don't know.

But the detention facility is not okay. Having these children that the circumstances around it and just and everything that's happening in that detention facility is just inhumane. And so, the president, in addition to looking at what's happening in Minneapolis, he needs to go or send his people there. And that's what Castro is calling for. He wants DHS to check up on Liam and that detention center immediately.

And so, we'll see if anything comes of it. But there will be more stories coming out of the detention center.

WILLIAMS: I would just say the harsh reality of all of this is that when the president ran for office pledging to remove a million people from the country a year or apprehend 3,000 people a year, this was the end result.

[16:55:10]

The agency simply was not equipped for the volume of people and the kinds of people I know from the Obama years, when removing 400,000 people a year. A lot of those folks were not criminal aliens, despite the administration working really hard to only target and apprehend people who had criminal convictions. This is what you get.

And it's shining a light on a process that has existed long before this.

HUNT: All right. Rahm Emanuel, thanks to you. Thanks to all of you on the panel, too, for being here today. Thanks to you at home for watching.

"THE LEAD" hosted by Phil Mattingly is going to start after a quick break.