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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Another Shooting in Minneapolis Involving Federal Officer; DHS Says, Fed Officer Shot Suspect in Minneapolis After Shovel Ambush; Another Shooting in Minneapolis, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) Tells Trump End This Occupation. CNN Follows Breaking News on Another Minneapolis Shooting Involving ICE. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired January 14, 2026 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, as a majority of Americans say ICE is making cities less safe, the administration delivers a message with street confrontations on the rise.
STEPHEN MILLER, WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF FOR POLICY: To all ICE officers, you have federal immunity.
PHILLIP: Plus, he told protesters to take over their institution. Now, Donald Trump's changing his tune.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: And they said people were shooting at them with guns and they were shooting back.
PHILLIP: Also, an icy chat at the White House. Greenland refuses to budge on Trump's takeover threats.
LARS LOKKE RASMUSSEN, DANISH FOREIGN MINISTER: We therefore still have a fundamental disagreement.
PHILLIP: Live at the table, Brad Todd, Ana Kasparian, Jason Rants, Dan Koh and Kmele Foster.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York. We begin with reports of another shooting in Minneapolis involving federal agents. Now, this is coming a week after the shooting death of Renee Good inside her car by an ice officer, and days after confrontations between ICE and the public on American streets.
CNN is on its way to the scene as we speak where protesters are gathering. But just moments ago, we received the first initial Homeland Security account of what happened in this incident. DHS says that officers were conducting a targeted stop involving an undocumented immigrant when the suspect fled.
Now, during that struggle, two other people came out of a nearby apartment and allegedly attacked the officer with a shovel. DHS says, fearing for his life, the officer fired shots hitting one person in the leg. The statement does go on to criticize the governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, and also the mayor of Minneapolis, accusing them of, quote, encouraging and organized resistance to ICE. The governor tonight issuing a demand for Donald Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. TIM WALZ (D-MN): Let's be very, very clear. This long ago stopped being a matter of immigration enforcement. Instead, it's a campaign of organized brutality against the people of Minnesota by our own federal government.
But as bad as it's been, Donald Trump intends for it to get worse. This week, he went online to promise that, quote, the day of retribution and reckoning is coming.
So, tonight, let me say once again to Donald Trump and Kristi Noem, end this occupation. You've done enough.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: The Democratic leader of the House is also now warning Trump officials that incitement and engagement of state violence is a crime, and, quote, you are hereby put on notice. He was responding to this clip that was being re-circulated by the administration today. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MILLER: To all ICE officers, you have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties. And anybody who lays a hand on you or tries to stop you or tries to obstruct you is committing a felony.
No one, no city official, no state official, no illegal alien, no leftist agitator or domestic insurrectionist can prevent you from fulfilling your legal obligations and duties. And the Department of Justice has made clear that if officials cross that line into obstruction, into criminal conspiracy against the United States or against ICE officers, then they will face justice.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: It seems pretty clear that this situation in Minneapolis continues to boil over and it's gotten to a point where it is almost -- you can see that there are so many ways that this could be tamped down, but everything seems to be tamping it up. Where does this end?
DAN KOH (D), U.S. CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE, MASSACHUSETTS: I think the scary thing is that this is just the tip of the iceberg. I mean, people forget that Donald Trump has now spent $30 billion from the last bill for 10,000 more ICE agents that are going to be on the streets.
[22:05:05]
I find it ironic that we're having this conversation amidst the healthcare debate. That $30 billion would cover all the ACA subsidies for a year. It would eliminate all co-pays for prescription drugs for people from a year and would eliminate all medical debt. It's like he's making it easier to kill people than to keep people alive.
And I want people in this country to answer a very, very simple question. What is a better use of money, more ice agents to terrorize our neighbors or to make people more healthy when 60 percent of all bankruptcies in this country is due to health-related debt?
JASON RANTZ, SEATTLE RED RADIO HOST: ICE tonight went after someone in a targeted act because not only were they in this country illegally, but presumably there was also a crime that was committed, that ICE agent was attacked. This is not terrorizing the community. This is in fact precisely what it is, that most people usually at this table is also conceded. It is kind of important where you don't want to just go around and randomly ask people for papers. You compare that to the Gestapo. But now you're saying that going after someone who is a criminal, that somehow is hands off, we shouldn't be doing that, and that doesn't make a community safer by going after criminals?
And at the exact same time, we've got the ICE agent not only being attacked allegedly by this individual, but also two people in the neighborhood. Perhaps we should also take just a moment, pause and say, you shouldn't do that. That is wrong. That is a quick way to get injured yourself.
We can separate out going after someone who is in this country illegally, who is going about their day and trying to contribute to our society. Like I don't think there's an appetite -- I don't have an appetite for that. But I do have an appetite for going after people who are committing crimes here. And this seems to be like the least controversial issue that we should be angry with?
ANA KASPARIAN, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER AND HSOT, THE YOUNG TURKS: Look I think that there are -- I want to wait until this story develops a little more, because I remember after Renee Good was shot in the face three times, DHS's initial statement was to call her a domestic terrorist and to say that she ran an ICE agent over, which obviously wasn't true. She didn't run the ICE agent over. So, allegedly, right?
So --
RANTZ: Well, it's on video. We can see it.
KASPARIAN: I mean --
RANTZ: It's -- come on. I mean, you can agree --
KASPARIAN: They claimed that he had to be hospitalized immediately when you literally see him walking around, he doesn't look injured and he left the scene --
RANTZ: The reporting today shows that he had internal bleeding. KASPARIAN: He left the scene after shooting someone in the face three times. He got in his own vehicle and left, which -- is he supposed to do that? No one's even asked any questions. It doesn't matter. He's not going to be investigated according to the federal government.
I think when the federal government comes out and essentially tells ICE agents, you can behave however you'd like to, and there are no consequences, what that does is it emboldens individuals who are drunk off their own power and are going to abuse that power. I think it sets a really bad tone, especially in the middle of these escalations.
PHILLIP: So, let me just read what conservative New York Times Columnist Ross Douthat has said about this. He says, I don't think there's a way to establish the normalcy of intense interior enforcement without some concessions to ICE's non-radical critics, concessions like agents no longer being masked in so many public situations or operations being slowed and training extended to encourage professionalism and cut down on harassment, or, to Aana's point, allowing a full investigation of any agent-involved shooting before the White House or its agencies denounce the shooter.
I mean, he's offering, in essence, a middle ground to this administration because it seems pretty clear based on the polling that we have, including CNN polling from today, that a majority of Americans do not approve of Trump on immigration. They do not approve of how Trump is going about these deportations. 52 percent say he's gone too far. 51 percent say that cities are less safe because of these operations. The public opinion on this is not in the administration's favor at the moment,
KMELE FOSTER, EDITOR-AT-LARGE, TANGLE: And this is their signature issue. I mean, the Trump administration should be proud of their record closing up the border, actually stemming the flow of illegal migrants. What they should be doing now is finding a way to defend their reputation.
What is astonishing to me is that between Mayor Frey, Governor Walz, President Trump, even Vice President Vance and the rest of the administration, there's nobody that seems to publicly be calling for how can we ratchet this down? How can we find a way to work together collaboratively on these issues? I get it. You guys have to do your enforcement actions in the city, fine. Let's talk about a way to do that without getting everyone so animated.
I think you can be critical of the administration, you could be critical of Governor Walz, if you'd like, and you think he's responsible for some of this while at the same time not escalating things. We've had federal agents shot and killed and targeted, attacked. We've had American citizens routinely now and repeatedly drag out of cars, having physical altercations. Everyone is upset here and no one is taking a step back.
And the administration certainly earns a great deal of the responsibility for that after this tragic shooting took place.
[22:10:06] And I can say that without giving a complete pardon to Ms. Good here. But at the same time, while that's true, there is a clear opportunity for the administration to say, we don't necessarily need to do this as intensely. Instead, they surged into the area to show toughness. The theatrical nature of that, at this point, and we actually just talked about this, it's not fair to call the theater anymore. This is a ridiculous, ugly split.
PHILLIP: A couple of individuals, not just Ross, but also Rand Paul. They're also saying, you know what, the masks should stop. The paramilitary gear should stop. When I look at the videos and I see ICE officer, agents, Border Patrol officers wearing you know, military- style fatigues in urban environments, what do they -- what is this really about? Is it about a show or is it about trying to make the case, as they should to the American people, that it's important for them to do what they need to do, which is take criminals off the street, not to say to the American people, we're at war with you?
BRAD TODD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think blues and dressed blues, officer blues would be probably better received by the community. And one of the frustrating things for me is that no one seems to learn anything in this. You know, we're not -- ICE is trying to do something hadn't been done in quite a while, which is interior enforcement. The law calls for it, but they've got to learn as they go, as they've got to improve tactics as they go.
Tim Walz and the Democrats in sanctuary cities aren't learning anything. Minnesota being a sanctuary state for 20 years is a big part of what created this problem. It's so bad, that in Minneapolis, there's a police memorandum that says that Minneapolis police cannot even participate in crowd control when there's a protest at an ICE activity. That's from June 9th. Katie Blackwell, the deputy chiefs of police. If the Minneapolis police had been on the street, buffering between ICE and the protesters, Renee Good might be alive today. Left wing extremists passed that.
In Congress, you don't see Democrats learning any lessons either. You got members of Congress calling to shut down the government on January 30th to defund ICE. It's like we're playing the same thing over and over again and nobody's adapting the results that they didn't want.
PHILLIP: You know, I keep hearing about interior enforcement not being done in the past, and that's just not true.
TODD: It happened to under Obama, but it did not happen under Joe Biden.
PHILLIP: It happened a lot under Obama. And to the point where it happened more, way more under Obama than it did under Trump, the first term and we'll see where the numbers land for this second Trump term. But Obama did a huge amount of interior enforcement.
And, again, I mean we were talking about this the last time. Republicans keep saying, well, it's because there weren't sanctuary cities then. There were sanctuary cities then.
KASPARIAN: Yes.
PHILLIP: They were grappling with sanctuary cities at the time, and we didn't see these kinds of, you know, communitywide confrontations.
TODD: Well, we didn't have Democrat politicians stirring them up because the Democrat in the White House was conducting.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: There's so many more ICE officers --
TODD: There are so many more --
PHILLIP: -- on the streets all morning. They want them to be the size of an army. And now they are being -- it's being felt by these communities as something that is coming at them, not coming to protect (ph).
RANTZ: Is it at least fair to acknowledge that under Biden, we had a surge of illegal immigrants coming into this country that does require a little bit more enforcement from ICE?
PHILLIP: Hold on. Just let me just say about this -- about that, because that's also important to distinguish. There was a huge surge of immigration under Biden of people crossing the border illegally, of people being paroled in through various legal processes. And so I do think there is though a distinction between people who cross the border and just kind of sneak in to the country and the many people who the Trump administration wants to put in the same category who actually came in through all kinds of legal processes, legal processes that maybe you don't like but they are still legal processes.
And so to then say, well, we're just going to hunt them down and kick them out, I don't know. That doesn't seem to jive with actually how they got here.
KASPARIAN: I mean, a perfect example is snatching people up when they are abiding by the law and showing up to their court dates. I mean, by doing that, you are discouraging others from abiding by the law and showing up to their court dates.
RANTZ: But it's the response to that.
KASPARIAN: So, it feels like it's not really about solving immigration issues. It feels like it's more retaliatory.
FOSTER: A choice to go door to door in the midst of all of this.
KASPARIAN: Exactly.
FOSTER: But that is a deliberate choice that you make. It is a provocation. It's not merely an enforcement action.
RANTZ: If the response to that was the same, or at least making some distinction from the left on when going after someone who's a clear criminal that we all agree should be deported, if there was some sort of at least acknowledgement from the left, from the people who are upset about this, saying, okay, that's what we want --
[22:15:00]
FOSTER: (INAUDIBLE) with some of that.
RANTZ: But we haven't, not really. And if you talk to the folks on the ground who are showing up to the protest, they're making no distinction between those two groups. I think Republicans have to make a distinction between those two groups. I think Republicans have to make a distinction between the two groups, the hardened criminal who needs to be deported, and the person who's working hard for their community. I think Republicans would be better served in that argument, but also Democrats would be better served in that argument and they're not making a distinction.
KASPARIAN: Can I also get --
PHILLIP: Let just just hold our thought there. We're going to take a very quick break and we'll be right back on the other side.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: We are following the breaking news out of Minneapolis tonight, another shooting involving federal officers.
[22:20:02]
DHS says it was in self-defense during a targeted stop of an undocumented immigrant.
CNN's Whitney Wild is on the scene right now where there have been some explosions, it seems, there are crowds gathering. Whitney, can you tell us what's happening where you are?
I think we're having trouble with Whitney's connection. We're going to try to reconnect with her. This is an active situation that's unfolding on the ground in Minneapolis, and like the scenes of ICE operations across the city over the last couple of days, it gets chaotic and it gets chaotic very, very fast.
Look, we don't know all the details we were saying in the previous segment, as we're coming back to the table while we wait for Whitney. The DHS says that this was a targeted enforcement operation and that the ice officer was attacked. And I do think that that is exactly the type of situation that we want, as few of those situations as possible, to transpire. And yet it seems like all the time there are all kinds of interactions happening where ICE officers are put in danger.
And I'm not sure if it's all. Just because of, you know, violent people attacking them. Sometimes it's also the tactics that I think are putting them in -- at risk with the vehicle stops, which there was have been some reporting about how these vehicle stops are so dangerous and more and more of them are happening.
TODD: Tim Walz and Jacob Frey should make an offer to DHS. They should offer to repeal their ordinances of separation in their sanctuary policies that prohibit local police and state troopers and state prosecutors from helping ICE in exchange for a prioritization, that ICE is going to only go after people who have felony problems, who have violent criminal past, who have other serious charges pending or have in their past. They ought to make them that offer.
That's the way if you if you want to make this work a lot better in the community, then the Democratic community leaders should offer to help. They should make this a collaborative effort with --
PHILLIP: I think they would take that deal, but I'm not sure the administration would take that deal.
KOH: So, are you admitting then that ICE is not handling this appropriately?
TODD: I've just said I think you have to -- they need to be learning. They need to be learning from their tactics, from mistakes as we go along.
KOH: Okay. But learning on the job does not mean shooting a woman point blank three times in the face and then calling her an F-ing B, which I can't say on T.V., and having her bleed out with teddy bears in the car. How does that build trust? How does that make any of us safer? And how does that build the goodwill to do what Donald Trump would like to say?
PHILLIP: Sorry to interrupt you, but I'm going to go back or try to go back to Whitney Wild, who's on the ground now.
Whitney, can you hear me? Whitney, what's happening around you?
WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Okay. We are near 23rd and Lyndale. It's not exact location, but we're a couple blocks away. Sorry, it's a little hard to breathe because they just let off several flash bangs, multiple tear gas canisters that were coming off all around us. And at one point it became so foggy that my producer, Meridith Edwards, and I got separated from our photographer, Jonathan Schaer. Things have calmed down a little bit now.
But you'll see if -- can you walk with me, Jon? Are you okay to walk or no? You want to stay here? Okay. You can see just over my side here, there's still multiple federal agents and a growing crowd very angry here, following them all around the neighborhood from what we've seen. This is all because what we know, according to the Department of Homeland Security, around 6:50 Central Time, law enforcement was conducting an operation where they say that they were going after a specific target. And when they tried to approach that target he ran, he jumped into a car, he fled in a vehicle, and then crashed.
Again, this is according to the Department of Homeland Security. Again, they're saying that, in an attempt to evade arrest, the subject fled the scene in his vehicle and then crashed. And once law enforcement was able to catch up with that subject, they attempted to arrest that subject. He was fighting back while that officer and the subject were on the ground apparently fighting, according to the Department of Homeland Security, other people began attacking law enforcement.
That's when the subject got loose and began striking the officer with a shovel or a broomstick. And that's when DHS says that the officer fired what they are calling defensive shots. They're now saying that that officer and the subject are in the hospital. The other two people who were engaged in this attack are in custody.
But this is a city that is already on edge, and what you're seeing right now is a major reaction. Again, it's hard to see, and we'll try to get a little bit closer here in a minute, Abby, but there is a growing crowd here that is increasingly angry, that is following ICE -- what we believe are ICE officers or other immigration agents throughout this neighborhood, screaming at them, telling them to leave in the strongest possible terms they can muster here.
[22:25:05]
Meanwhile, ICE trying to push back this crowd, was letting off tear gas canisters over and over and over. And at one point, Abby, they were going off all around us and act became so chaotic that one bounced off my foot and bounced off my side, and that's when we got separated because the smoke was everywhere and we were having trouble reconnecting. But now we're back. Our fearless photographer, Jonathan Schaer, was right in the center of it catching everything. If you guys are rolling out, I think maybe we can run that video later. But that is the scene here, Abby, and it's quite chaotic and it's going more so. Back to you.
PHILLIP: And, Whitney, as we're talking if you need to move or relocate, please do stay safe while you were out there. But I want to ask you, because 6:50 is the time that, according to the Department of Homeland Security, this incident occurred, it's been now several hours. Is your sense that the reason that there are still ICE officers or federal agents on the scene is because they're doing something, they're doing active enforcement or maybe they're investigating the shooting? And the folks that I'm hearing chanting -- are people chanting? Are they blowing whistles? What are they doing on the ground?
WILD: They're chanting, they're blowing whistles, they're screaming at them to go home. You're seeing -- you're going to hear more flash bangs in a second, I think. It sounded like one just a moment ago. They're surrounding these immigration officers and letting them know without any ambiguity that they do not like what they see and they want them to leave.
This has been an ongoing scene throughout the city of Minneapolis after the shooting of Renee Nicole Good. The city has been quite angry. We've seen multiple protests, not just in Minneapolis, but all around the country. Certainly now, this is giving new reason for people to protest.
Sorry, I'm just watching -- we're here -- it sounds it's louder than it looks. So, I'm trying to figure out, Abby. Sorry, I keep looking away, but it sounds like -- PHILLIP: So, is it -- I mean, can you estimate, do you have a sense of the size of the crowd and are more people coming to the scene because it's now known that there was an incident there?
WILD: I -- it's so dark, Abby, that I can't tell what the size of the crowd is. Do you -- are you okay to walk, Jonathan? Do you want -- Abby, we can walk and show you. Hold on. I can't know what the size of the crowd is, but there's other law enforcement here, it looks like. I can't see who they are. It's so dark. They're and darker uniforms. So, it could be local law enforcement, Abby. I'm just not sure.
But when we were on our way, we saw almost a dozen law enforcement vehicles screaming over to this location. So, we're still trying to get a handle on what the rules of law enforcement are and what the federal agents who are still on the ground might be doing. Are they continuing to do immigration enforcement? We can't know in this moment. All we know is what we see. And we see that they're starting to cordon off this area over here. But I think this scene, Abby, could be between 50 and 100 people, like it's so dark. I can't really tell. But we can -- are you guys okay to walk? Sorry, Abby. It's tough. And the conditions here are difficult because it's so icy.
PHILLIP: It's icy and cold. Can you tell us though, Whitney, it is dark for us to see even what you're seeing, what kind of neighborhood are we even talking about here?
WILD: Abby, this -- you know, this neighborhood is not far from downtown. It's ten minutes away. You know, we're -- again, we're at 23rd in Lyndale. What we have seen is multiple people driving out to ask us what we know. So, when -- you know, to go back to what you are asking about whether or not people are -- if the crowd is growing, I think it is growing. And I think people are curious, you know, at a minimum to know what's going on asking us and those around them what happened and for details. They're also here to make their voices heard in the loudest way that they can at this moment. Abby?
PHILLIP: All right. Whitney Wild, as you're walking around here, I'm seeing some folks in that -- there's a man walking in front of you with, you know, an illuminated vest. Is that law enforcement, is that a protester? Do you have any sense of who he is and what he's doing?
WILD: I can't tell. It looks like he has a helmet and maybe a camera, so he could be, you know, a member of the press as well. But we've certainly seen multiple people here who appear to be, I guess, I would call them civilian medics. What we see a lot of times at protests like this is people who are prepared for flash bangs to go off, tear gas to go off, and identify themselves as the type of person who can help you.
So, right now, you're seeing -- let me -- I'm going to try to come in front here.
[22:30:00]
Still multiple federal agents here, I'd say at least two dozen side by side here, you know, behind this police line. This now, we are at 23rd and we're still at 23rd in Lindale, right Meredith? Sorry, we've been walking around the neighborhood. So, we're on 23rd now.
This is where we believe this happened, but we're still continuing to gather details. The most detail we have is from the Department of Homeland Security. Their -- certainly their side of the narrative. We have reached out to other officials. We reached out to the Minneapolis Police Department to try to gather more information about what they know. But Abby, this is -- this is the scene here. It shows no signs of slowing down at all.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Whitney, I do want to say again, please stay safe. Please do what you need to do in that moment if you need to step away or go somewhere else in order to stay out of the fray here. But I also wonder as you're there, if any of the people around you might talk to you and tell you why they're there, why they showed up at this scene. It seems right now that what we're looking at is --
WILD: Do you want me to try to talk to someone?
PHILLIP: Yes, if you can. We're looking at what seems to be a standoff between federal agents and protesters. They're divided by a police line, but there is something of a standoff that is developing here on the scene where you are. So, if you -- if you have the ability to talk to someone, it would be interesting to know why they are there, what they are doing.
WILD: Listen, we're live on. CNN. Can I talk to you about why you're here?
PERLA, PROTESTER: Yes.
WILD: Okay, Abby, well. So, can you tell me your name? And can you -- do live in the neighborhood? How did you find out what happened?
PERLA: I live in Saint Paul on the West Side. I found out what happened throughout Facebook live. It was getting posted everywhere.
WILD: What brought you out tonight?
PERLA: I brought -- what brought me out tonight is to speak about what's going on here and how bad it is, and to speak up to the people who cannot speak up, and who are locked up in the houses because people support whatever this is.
WILD: Can you tell me what it feels like to be here right now? Why you think you're making an impact by being here, and it's dark, it's late? Why are you making this this effort tonight?
PERLA: Because with people who cannot speak up, this shows -- this here speaking out right now shows that I am supportive of my people and my community and that people who support this are very stupid in ways that cannot be talked about.
WILD: Can you tell me what you're seeing in your city over the last week? It's been one week since Renee Good was shot and killed. What have you seen?
PERLA: Lots of raids throughout my apartment. I'm not allowed to be outside without being scared, without being worried that something is going to happen with just the turn of my head. And I'm being locked up or something just because of the way I look, the way I speak or anything.
WILD: What does that feel like?
PERLA: Very scary, very scary. It's not comfortable being blocked but here tonight is something that is very -- I'm very proud of doing.
WILD: The controller was asking, did you guys want to ask me one more time? Sorry, control was trying to talk to me. Can you talk to us about the raids that you've seen? When are they happening? Where are they happening? And do -- what do you understand about the people that they're targeting?
PERLA: Well, from my house, like where I live in my apartment, they come in without warrants, without official anything. They just come in and barge into people's houses, gun -- armed up with no one being spoke to or anything. Masked up. This is kidnapping and everything above. That is not okay.
WILD: What does it feel like, you know, when you wake up in the morning? Are you scared? Are you anxious?
PERLA: I am very scared. I'm worried that I'm not even able to go to school and feel safe. And just walking outside my building or even walking outside my front door before heading outside the building is very scary. Like, I can't go to school without feeling worried that I'm going to be taken at any moment in any second in my life.
WILD: What kind of impact do you think that you can make as an individual here?
PERLA: To be honest, I'm not sure, but speaking up to the people who cannot speak up and showing that I'm not supporting what's going on right now.
WILD: Okay, thank you very much. Was there anything that I didn't ask that you wanted to get off your heart or your mind?
PERLA: No.
WILD: Thank you very much. I appreciate your time. Thank you. So Abby, you know, I think that reflects what we've heard from people throughout the last week that they are an individual, they are seeing what they don't support in their community, what they think is wrong, and so they are here spending their time in the cold, in the dark, to tell to the faces of the people that they are angry with how they feel, and again, that they want them gone, Abby.
PHILLIP: Whitney, while that was really interesting, that interview with that young woman, I do also now have the video that you were describing earlier that you and your photographer were able to shoot before we came onto the air.
[22:35:02]
Let's go ahead and play that video.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(GUNSHOTS)
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP: All right, so we're seeing there a really extraordinary scene in an American neighborhood. You know, this is a nightly affair now it seems in Minneapolis. But we also saw similar scenes in Chicago. We saw similar scenes in Los Angeles.
And I do want to kind of go back to what this young woman was saying in that interview. I'm not even sure she even knows what that incident was that transpired, but she has personally witnessed ICE raids in her community. And that her feeling that she can't step outside of her own home is what brought her there tonight.
KMELE FOSTER,"TANGLE" EDITOR-AT-LARGE: Yes. She didn't mention any Democratic officials who've said things that have gotten her excited that -- they're seeing things happen in their neighborhoods and their communities. A sense of -- that you'll be targeted on account of your physical appearance or your phenotypic traits when you step outside of your door. That is an extraordinary thing to hear someone say.
I'm also really just flummoxed by what exactly they're trying to achieve strategically there. I can understand if you have an investigation scene that you need to secure, but trying to disperse the crowd in that sort of way. I do wonder about the level of training they have. We know that we've gone from having five to six months' worth of training on average to something that's probably better measured in days or weeks was involved in these particular incidents?
Are these new ICE officers? Are these veteran ICE officers? Do we know anything about that? Police do this, as well, I mean. So, I've covered riots and near riots and these kinds of instances many times over the course of about a year and a half in the Pacific Northwest. When you're getting very dangerously close and you're outnumbering the officers, law enforcement on the ground, this is a common task.
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: I'm asking what is strategic objective? Is it an investigative scene?
UNKNOWN: In this case, well, that's part of it, obviously. I mean, someone was shot, so they're there collecting evidence. And as much as all of us would prefer these things take 10 minutes, they sometimes take hours and sometimes take days. And so, they're trying to secure the scene. But beyond that, they're trying to keep everyone there safe. I mean --
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: That does not look to be case.
UNKNOWN: That crowd would almost certainly disperse if the ICE officers were not there. So, they'd be a lot safer if the Minneapolis police were there.
UNKNOWN: That may be true as well. I'm just saying that there's a lot going on in these scenes. We don't exactly know what's transpiring. And to the extent this isn't a war zone, you're not trying to hold territory and move folks up.
UNKNOWN: You are trying to that for the same -- I'm sorry, but this is --
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: It's a winter night. Those people would go back to their homes.
UNKNOWN: Someone was just attacked, who was an ICE agent, there are clearly people who there who would like to see ICE agents be attacked and harmed.
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: I think that's -- I understand her. I agree.
UNKNOWN: Seriously.
UNKNOWN: And I think that's what they're doing.
DAN KOH (D) U.S. CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE, MASSACHUSETTS: As someone who worked in crisis response in both a city level and at the White House, the moral and the goal of every one of these is to try to de- escalate and calm and insert calm, okay? This entire situation was of Donald Trump's making, wanting to send these people into the community. That is a fact. It is a fact. You can disagree, but it's a fact.
And your point about the role of a leader in de-escalating, the problem with this President is that the chaos is the point. He wants distraction every single day to stop people from criticizing his agenda, to stop people from criticizing the fact that there are millions of Epstein files that still haven't been released in contempt of court. That is what this President likes to do. He likes to stoke the flames, to distract from all the other things he's doing to hurt our country.
ANA KASPARIAN, "THE YOUNG TURKS" EXECUTIVE PRODUCER AND HOST: I mean his response to what happened in the Good shooting was to double down and send an influx of additional ICE agents to Minneapolis.
[22:40:01]
PHILLIP: Is it worth also just rewinding the tape a little bit because how did we get here? Some Somali fraud accusations involving Somali Americans, some of them. We don't know the immigration status actually of many of those people. It's a relatively small population. And in response to that discrete thing, the Trump administration decided that they were going to surge ICE into Minneapolis.
KASPARIAN: Yes.
PHILLIP: Those two things seem to be so separate in terms of what needs to happen when it comes to fraud and what needs to happen when it comes to immigration.
KASPARIAN: It seems like --
PHILLIP: It kind of belies that there's another motive here.
KASPARIAN: Yes.
PHILLIP: It's not just --
KASPARIAN: Seems like the fraud is a cover --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: It's not just the fraud, certainly, because this is not related to fraud.
BRAD TODD, CO-FOUNDER, ON MESSAGE AND REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: The fraud's important, and Scott Bessent today suggested that it might be 10 percent of what we're spending outside Social Security and the government. So, we actually do have to get down to the fraud. Politically, this is distraction. This has taken away a lot of the attention that should be on the fraud.
Tim Walz is the guy who's getting off scot-free here. He had -- he was run out of his office because he presided over the fraud, tolerated the fraud, covered up the fraud, put it under the rug. And now, he's playing the victim on television every night. And so --
(CROSSTALK)
FOSTER: If he's given the President such bad advice, why is he doing this if it's --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: That is a very good question. I mean I think -- but I think we know the answer. The man on TV every night saying that federal officers have immunity to just --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: With which they don't, okay? They don't have immunity. They don't have immunity, okay?
(CROSSTALK)
TODD: Community is the wrong word, but the Supremacy Clause makes it --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Sure, but they don't have immunity. That's not a thing. But also just today, the administration has now banned all visa processing -- immigrant visa processing for 75 countries. So, we're shifting now from illegal immigrants who came across the border in that surge that we were just talking about under Biden to now immigration writ large.
KASPARIAN: Right.
PHILLIP: Which seems to be what some people in the administration are aiming at just from the beginning.
JASON RANTZ, SEATTLE RED RADIO HOST: I think Stephen Miller and some of the comments he's made, I think have been irresponsible, frankly, and I think it makes it easy for folks to look at and act like this and say that there are ulterior motives, and perhaps there are. But I also think that because -- and I think it's fair to say over the course of last four years, things have been a little bit lax as it relates to immigration.
And this idea that we're going to put a pause, particularly on 75 countries that are deemed a particular threat, including Russia and Somalia, sure. But they're not specifically targeting countries willy nilly, and they're certainly not doing it on the basis of, you know, skin color, which has been --
(CROSSTALK)
KASPARIAN: Well, can we maybe stop bombing Somalia if we want refugees from Somalia to come to our country?
PHILLIP: I think that there's always, and when it comes to the Trump administration, there's always a more logical way, there's always a better way to achieve, even if that's their goal. If their goal is to find out that whether there was lax vetting in the last four years, fine, there are ways to do that. If their goal is to make sure that people aren't becoming public charges, fine, there are ways to do that.
But by suspending immigrant visa processing for 75 countries, what you're essentially saying is that if you've been here for 15, 20 years, you're a law-abiding person, and you are going up for your green card after waiting in line for -- it can take two decades in this country to get in the front of the green card line. All of a sudden there's a capricious stop that's been placed. Why do those types of things when you can do it in a way that actually makes more sense?
TODD: The American public does not want people expelled who are participating in the process, showing up for their hearings, applying for visas, work permits, and working within the confines of the immigration laws we have. And some of those need to be cleaned up, by the way. Some of those laws are confusing. Some of them are conflicting. Some
of them have logical problems. We might be able to do that if Democrats would agree that we need to keep out people who abusing the asylum system, the people who are coming over --
KOH: We had a bipartisan bill proposed under Biden that Senator Langford proposed, that would have created more judges to adjudicate those asylum claims you just claimed. Donald Trump called and killed it.
TODD: No, it also had, there was a bill from the House, H.R. 2, that the Senate refused to take.
(CROSSTALK)
KOH: The Senate would be bad --
(CROSSTALK)
TODD: You had to amend H.R. 2. That was what you had to do. The Senate -- give me a break. The Senators and House members get to think for themselves. You had to amend H.R.
KOH: The Senate, wait, the Senators and House members are thinking for themselves right now?
KASPARIAN: They're definitely not.
(CROSSTALK)
KOH: Do think they're being a good, co-equal branch of government right now?
TODD: Yes, absolutely. They're going to control the purse strings on January 30th. Just watch.
KOH: Okay.
PHILLIP: But Brad, don't you acknowledge that there was a -- that bipartisan effort was led actually internally in the Congress.
TODD: It wasn't serious.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: It was being led by Langford --
(CROSSTALK)
[22:45:00]
PHILLIP: He's not a rhino, okay?
TODD: Listen.
PHILLIP: He is tried and true Republican from Oklahoma. It was serious effort, but it was killed because Republicans wanted to keep the issue alive politically.
TODD: That's false. That's false. It's because it tolerated --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Not just that. During the Trump administration -- the first trump administration.
TODD: Too many asylum claims before any enforcement --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: But the first Trump administration, again, there were several opportunities for him to make all kinds of deals on immigration, to get more money for border enforcement, to get more money for his border wall in exchange for DACA, in exchange for doing something on Dreamers. Every time, it is refused. And again, like in real talk, Americans are sick of this.
KASPARIAN: Yes.
PHILLIP: They actually really want to fix this problem. But the politicians don't want to fix it. And yes, you can blame some Democrats for it, but you cannot say that Republicans do not play a role.
(CROSSTALK)
TODD: Well, I blame the Republicans who are working on that so-called compromise, too. House had passed a bill, H.R. two. The Senate was obligated to take up H.R. two and try to amend it. But Chuck Schumer wouldn't do that because Chuck Schumer didn't want enforcement. He wanted laxity. And that's what he was -- that's what you got.
(CROSSTALK)
KASPARIAN: Langford's bill was not some easy like,
TODD: Sure, it was.
KASPARIAN: --oh, we're going to be --
(CROSSTALK)
KASPARIAN: No, it wasn't. It was a wish list of the Republican Party.
(CROSSTALK)
TODD: It was not. It was not.
(CROSSTALK)
KASPARIAN: Trump didn't want to do it by the win.
(CROSSTALK)
KASPARIAAN: Please be honest about that.
TODD: I am being honest with it. It was not near tough enough to pass
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: The asylum numbers were so low that it would have effectively closed the border.
KASPARIAN: Yes.
PHILLIP: That bill would have closed the border.
TODD: It would not have passed the House. The senators were obligated to work off the House product in a minute.
PHILLIP: You're talking about process.
TODD: No, I'm talking about the way government works.
PHILLIP: I am talking about -- are we trying to get to an end policy that actually achieves what Republicans say they want to achieve, which is an immigration system that actually makes more sense. And at every turn, why is it that there is never a serious effort on the part of Republicans to say, you know what we're going to do? We're actually going to change the laws. We're going to legislate on this. We're going to actually --
(CROSSTALK)
RANTZ: They do our H.R. two in the House. That was a serious effort.
PHILLIP: Why will they -- listen. Republicans have controlled the Congress for entire year. They control the House, the Senate, and the White House and they have a Supreme Court that is in their favor. So why is it? Explain to me. Twelve months of Donald Trump, no legislation whatsoever on immigration.
(CROSSTALK)
RANTZ: So, first of all, Democrats also had a lot of control and didn't do any of what you're talking about either. And I think the real reason behind a lot of this, Republicans have been open about this, that they're not going to compromise when it comes to security. And Democrats seem to want to stop talking about the security part and go past that. Republicans are simply saying, let's do security at least.
(CROSSTALK)
RANTZ: Yes, Governor Abbott bust all of those undocumented people all around the country. How does that make our country safe?
(CROSSTALK)
KOH: They get into this country illegally to begin with.
(CROSSTALK)
KOH: I'm saying that if Governor Abbott and MAGA were serious about curbing undocumented immigration and migration around the country, he wouldn't have had a bust system to bust them all around --
(CROSSTALK)
TODD: -- demonstrate that Boston and cities like Boston don't have to pay the price of the social services that Texas does.
KOH: It's all political theater. That's what it was.
FOSTER: But the urgent concern now is not the flow of immigrants into illegal immigration into the country at this point. We're really only dealing with enforcement issues. And the enforcement issues have a great deal to do.
RANTZ: Because the flow has stopped.
FOSTER: Exactly.
RANTZ: Because of Donald Trump being Republican.
(CROSSTALK)
KASPARIAN: Olay, wait, Congratulations, but --
(CROSSTALK)
FOSTER: So I gave him credit for that at the beginning of this conversation. Right now we're talking about an incredibly dysfunctional enforcement effort on the part of the administration. These federal officials work for the President of the United States to the extent they are going on these various raids throughout the community, stopping people at random, creating an atmosphere of fear and panic in these communities.
That is a choice. They could take the same officers and send them anyplace else in the country. This is not the epicenter of illegal immigration activity in America. We have 50 states. They could go anyplace. They are stirring the pot. That is the problem right now, acutely.
PHILLIP: All right, we're going to take a quick break and then we're going to be right back on the scene in Minneapolis as we're continuing to monitor what is happening on the ground on the scene of that federal officer-involved shooting. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:53:53]
PHILLIP: We are following the breaking news out of Minneapolis. Another shooting tonight involving a federal officer. Meantime, back in Washington, Todd Blanche, the number two at the DOJ, has released this statement tonight saying, quote, "ICE operates in thousands of counties without incident, men and women doing their jobs, protecting us from criminal aliens. Minnesota insurrection is a direct result of a failed governor and a terrible mayor encouraging violence against law enforcement. It's disgusting. Walz and Fry, I'm focused on stopping you from your terrorism by whatever means necessary. This is not a threat. It's a promise."
That is a statement from the Deputy Attorney General of the United States. As we've been discussing, we are constantly, day by day ratcheting things up.
KASPARIAN: Referring to Americans as terrorists.
(CROSSTALK)
TODD: Well, wait minute, wait a minute. Tim Walz said it was a federal occupation. He put the National Guard on notice. He's everything short of Fort Sumter right now.
KASPARIAN: Okay, I agree that that's irresponsible, but terrorism, accusing American citizens of being domestic terrorists, I would say is beyond excessive, right?
[22:55:08]
(CROSSTALK)
KASPARIAN: It's pitting the government against the American people. These are people who are supposed to be working for us. Let's remember that.
KOH: This president is pitting Americans against each other and redefining what it means to be American. Remember, this is a president who said that most foreign-born Americans are on welfare from failed nations and criminals. Fifty million people, half of those people are U.S. citizens. He went on CNBC celebrating the fact that foreign-born workers, again many of them U.S. citizens, had lost jobs month over month. This is a president who is redefining what it means to be American and trying to convince people that immigrants are welcome here. That's all part of his --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: And also, that's -- to me, I've been thinking about that, the creation of these categories of citizenship, where I've seen some of the videos where they're not asking, are you a U.S. citizen? They're asking, where are you born?
KASPARIAN: Yes.
PHILLIP: Because they're trying to say, essentially, if you can't prove that you were born at that hospital over there, your citizenship doesn't protect you. I don't know that that's an America that a lot of people want to live in.
RANTZ: I think what you have here are organized activists in large part who are creating this kind of turmoil. You have local leaders who are choosing not to ratchet down any of the rhetoric.
UNKNOWN: Locally?
RANTZ: Yes, local. You thought about it?
(CROSSTALK)
RANTZ: I think it's an occupation that is clearly a problem.
FOSTER: Does that look like an insurrection to you, what we're watching on television?
RANTZ: I've seen activists who've showed up like chance.
FOSTER: Does that look like an insurrection to you? That's what was just described as in this statement from a high-ranking federal official.
(CROSSTALK)
RANTZ: -- people who are showing up with the intent --
(CROSSTALK)
FOSTER: You won't answer the question.
(CROSSTALK)
RANTZ: I literally answered the question here. You don't think they're showing up because they want to do damage?
KOH: They're protesting in response to a woman who shot in the face.
RANTZ: No, actually what they're doing tonight is protesting because someone was arrested and then attacked an ICE agent. Does that not count? That's what --
(CROSSTALK)
TODD: You peacefully protest in the town square. You peacefully protest with a letter to the editor.
KOH: Are they too many violence right now?
TODD: You peacefully protest by starting a stack or a podcast.
KOH: Like starting a podcast?
TODD: No, wait a minute. You cannot interfere with --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: We've been in this country now in the midst of protests of all forms for a long time. We have seen protests in this country that, no, don't stop at a letter to the editor, okay? You see in the history of this country peaceful, justified protests in which people put their lives and their bodies on the line. They leave their homes, they go and do something that officials tell them is unlawful sitting at a segregated counter crossing abridge. People have been doing that in this country for a long time. That is also --
(CROSSTALK)
TODD: Civil disobedience is honored. It's honored.
PHILLIP: Listen, civil disobedience is peaceful protest.
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: I find it ironic that the --
PHILLIP: It is.
TODD: Civil disobedience is honored in this country and always should be. That means you're willing to--
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I'm just saying --
TODD: But the definition of it, Abby, those -- hold on. The definition of civil disobedience is that --
PHILLIP: I don't know why they're showing up on the scene. By why are they not allowed to show up in just say I don't agree.
TODD: First off, you can't interfere with federal law enforcement activity. And it's a violation of Minnesota state law if your interference with that activity causes someone who's guilty of something or being pursued to get away. Let's go back. Hold on. Civil disobedience is an honor tradition in this country. We want to keep it. That means that you have to be willing to take the legal punishment that comes with that action to demonstrate that the laws are immoral. That's what civil disobedience is.
KOH: I find it horrifying that this president has more praise for the people in Iran to protest than the people in the United States to exercise their right to --
(CROSSTALK)
TODD: They have a right to protest. It's not advisable to go interfere with lawful law enforcement activity.
(CROSSTALK)
KASPARIAN: It's okay to arrest those people, but when you see videos, and I've now seen several of them, of Americans who are not obstructing in any way, they're just simply filming from afar, and you see ice agents approach them, knock them to the ground and take their phone, people get angry.
TODD: Look, I don't think we have training for people who are in the immigration police to conduct due crowd control. That's why the local police need to be there to be a buffer between protesters who are not trying to --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: -- that earlier, but I think some context, I don't know why they passed that ordinance that you're pointing out. I really don't. But I do want to note that, you know, in Chicago, there were local police that did show up to these protests and they were gassed because federal agents weren't coordinating with them and they would gasp the local police.
And so, I think that there is this tug of war happening where, actually, local officials seem to want to protect their people from what's happening on the ground, which sometimes can get very confrontational and dangerous. So --
FOSTER: I mean this scene could be so much more dramatic than what we're looking at tonight.
[23:00:00]
At the moment it looks relatively calm. That's a very good thing. I'm not sure that they're deescalating, but at the moment it looks relatively calm. As I said a moment ago, it's the statement from the federal official that I find particularly strange that this is somehow an insurrection. People are upset. They're concerned. There is legitimate reason to be concerned. We've all seen some disturbing footage.
UNKNOWN: A dialing down of rhetoric is help on all sides.
FOSTER: And I think that is exactly correct.
PHILLIP: All right, everybody, thank you. Thank you all very much for rolling with us on that coverage. Our special coverage of this scene continues. "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
