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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump And Officials Begin To Point Fingers After ICE Shooting; Miller, Who Called Pretti "Assassin", Admits Possible Agent Wrongdoing; Trump's Hardline Adviser Admits "Possible Breach Of Protocol"; Man Sprays Unknown Liquid on Rep. Omar; Melania Trump Speaks on Fox News; ICE Agents Omit Details on Pretti Shooting. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired January 27, 2026 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[22:00:10]
KAITLAN COLLINS, CCN ANCHOR: Tomorrow night we have a special scene in town hall event here. We're going to be live in Minneapolis as residents have been questioning and will question to our night officials and community leaders amid weeks of protests and obviously tragedy on the ground. My colleagues Anderson Cooper and Sara Sidner are going to moderate State of Emergency confronting the crisis in Minnesota. You don't miss that at 8:00 p.m. Eastern here tomorrow night. And it's as soon as it's over, you'll see the key moments here on THE SOURCE with our top political experts.
See you tomorrow night. Thanks for joining us. CNN News Night with Abby Phillip starts right now.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight, a retreat from ICE. Stephen Miller deflects blame to the agents on the ground while the drum beat grows louder for Kristi Noem's job.
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SEN. THOM TILLIS, (R) NORTH CAROLINA: If I were president, neither one of them would be in Washington right now.
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PHILLIP: Plus, Donald Trump's moment of concession includes a pledge.
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DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: We're going to deescalate a little bit.
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PHILLIP: And a throw under the bus.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Bovino's very good, but he's a pretty out there kind of a guy.
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PHILLIP: Also, she's been the face of the president's attacks on Minnesota. And tonight, a man rushes Congresswoman Ilhan Omar at a town hall in a chilling close call. And now that federal agents have killed American citizens, Republicans who pushed the crackdown are now pushing lectures.
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SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS TV HOST: Do I think that going into Home Depots and arresting people there is a good idea? I don't.
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PHILLIP: Live at the table, Ana Navarro, Kevin O'Leary, Tiffany Cross, Jim Schultz and Elie Honig. Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here they do.
Good evening. I'm Abby Philipp in New York. We begin tonight with breaking news. Damage control, a retreat and a remarkable admission of possible wrongdoing from Donald Trump's hardline adviser. Tonight, Stephen Miller is conceding that agents in Minneapolis may not have followed protocol before the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti. And in a statement to CNN, the White House deputy chief of staff pointed the finger at the agents on the ground for Homeland Security's initial characterization of the shooting.
Now Miller's about face is coming days after he called Pretty a would be assassin and he suggested that Pretti was a terrorist. Vice President JD Vance also retweeted one of those posts, by the way.
Also tonight, the drumbeat is growing louder for Trump to fire DHS Chief Kristi Noem, including Democratic Senator John Fetterman and now Thom Tillis, who is the first Republican senator to call for the ouster of both Noem and Miller.
Ana Navarro, are you surprised or what? Do you think it indicates that Stephen Miller, who normally doesn't back down on anything, is rushing to try to defend himself, to deflect blame, to say that it was someone else's fault and not his, even though he has an extraordinary amount of power in this White House.
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think what it says is that they are getting an extraordinary amount of backlash from the country, I think, including Republicans, including conservatives. I think Americans have had it. I think Americans will not be lied to. Frankly, they chose to -- they killed the wrong guy, right? Because this is the -- this is like the perfect guy.
Alex Pardy is the guy you would want to date your daughter. The guy you'd want your son to grow up to be. A decent human being who was serving humanity, serving sick veterans who is, you know, there is nothing that has been said about that man that isn't wonderful. And so, they can't malign him. They can't malign him because we have the videos. So they can't say he's a would be assassin and people believe him.
They can't say, as they said, that he was there to commit a massacre. People realize they are being lied to and they will not be lied to a second time the way they were lied to about Renee Good.
And let's remember that this comes on the heels of the Renee Good murder. It comes on the heels two days after the baby boy, the five- year-old boy with a beanie hat, was detained and used as bait. People have had it, Abby. This country has had it and they're feeling the heat.
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: It's a heck of a turnaround. You have Stephen Miller who days ago was calling Alex Pretti a would be assassin, today acknowledging there could be some fault by the agents. Is this the first time Stephen Miller has ever given an inch on anything? And it looks to me like the strategy is shifting here to Ana's point. The strategy is changing.
[22:05:05]
All of a sudden you see the leaders sort of backing off and trying to push responsibility down to the ICE agents on the street. And I should add, this is exactly why we need a full and fair and independent investigation, because this is a new fact that we didn't know before. Now I have real questions about the investigation as currently constituted will be full and fair and independent. But this is an important revelation.
PHILLIP: Yes. And I also wonder, I mean, really, are we really going to say that it's the CBP agents on the ground who are responsible and not the people actually pushing the policy from the White House? The people putting quotas, the people even allowing Border Patrol to be in the interior of the United States as opposed to on the border? Is that really what we're doing here, is casting the blame to the little guy as opposed to the people in charge?
JIM SCHULTZ, CNN LEGAL COMMENTATOR: Well, you've seen, look, Stephen Miller was very instrumental in the American First Policy Institute, was the architect of a lot of these things that the administration is doing on immigration was out in front of this issue. The reporting says that Kristi Noem had checked up the chain, including to Stephen Miller, as to what she said publicly.
PHILLIP: Constant contact with the White House is what they said she was in the day of the shooting.
SCHULTZ: So now you're seeing Stephen Miller, who, you know, notably, reportedly was not in that meeting with the president on Monday night when you had Kristi Noem, Corey Lewandowski, the chief of staff, he's not in that meeting. That tells you something when you're not in a meeting.
So the fact that he's backtracking on some of these things and that they're starting to shift gears, not surprising.
TIFFANY CROSS, AUTHOR, "LOVE ME": I mean, they lied when it was so clear they were lying. And I think that is, unfortunately, the effect that this MAGA cult movement has. We saw the same thing with Renee Good. We all saw what we saw, but all it took was enough of them to say, oh, no, no, she was trying to run him over with her car. And then across the board, you saw people presented as though it's a debate.
Well, what did you see and what did you see? And it blatantly was not. I want to commend CNN's Sara Sidner for being on the ground, because she was one of the first people that I heard, maybe other people did, but she was one of the first people to blatantly say they are lying. It is clear they are lying. We saw. And that is so Important to the credibility here.
Furthermore, there is a reason why we have not seen a resurgence of the Proud Boys and that is because I believe a lot of them are likely made ICE officers. Again, I've said this on the show before. I've not seen any deep dive reporting into who these people are. But they certainly adopt a lot of the ideology, a lot of the tactics, a lot of the violent tactics, a lot of the wearing masks and it sounds a lot like their founder, what they initially put out. And so because Stephen Miller backtracks, I don't really care.
I wonder about all the incidents that are not caught on videotape. I wonder about all the people who are sitting in detention centers right now as we sit here, who are malnourished, who are without lifesaving medication, children who have been kidnapped.
KEVIN O'LEARY, CHAIRMAN, O'LEARY VENTURES: Tiffanny, you just say ICE officers are militia.
CROSS: Yes. Have you not been paying attention?
O'LEARY: Yes, I see you're stretching a little bit.
CROSS: They certainly mirror the Gestapo.
O'LEARY: That's very --
CROSS: I don't think I'm stretching anything. I think we have seen what we have not seen.
O'LEARY: You know, this is actually a --
CROSS: We have not seen our gang members committing violence.
O'LEARY: This is a federal and state (inaudible).
CROSS: What we have seen are ICE agents --
O'LEARY: You're pushing that a little bit there. That's -- that's --
PHILLIP: But hold on one second. But Tiffany, you're -- you're saying that phase. You're just making a supposition here. There's no concrete evidence of actual --
SCHULTZ: Well, you got to be careful. That's what -- that's -- PHILLIP: DHS.
SCHULTZ: But there was some supports.
CROSS: Well, actually --
O'LEARY: Surveying the government that --
CROSS: -- we have seen white supremacists tattoos on --
O'LEARY: -- risking their lives, serving the government --
CROSS: Risking their lives, taking lives, Kevin.
O'LEARY: And you're calling a -- you're calling a proud boy militia. Did you say that?
CROSS: I did not call them a proud boy militia, but I think it's disgraceful that you're sitting here -- I'm -- I'm actually not. But I think there are white supremacist tattoos on their neck. We have seen --
O'LEARY: White supremacist federal officers.
CROSS: Yes. White supremacists, federal officers.
O'LEARY: Okay. That's the -- that -- like where are you going with this? Why would you say that?
CROSS: I'm going with my eyes, ears and logic. There have been multiple ICE agents who have white supremacists tattoos --
PHILLIP: All right.
O'LEARY: Men and women working for the federal government --
PHILLIP: Let me -- let me Jim have a word --
O'LEARY: Risking their lives, carrying out a mandate. And they're white supremacists.
CROSS: Yes.
PHILLIP: Hold on. Hold on.
CROSS: And you're a member of a cult. So I won't expect you to analyze that.
O'LEARY: Whoa. Whoa. Whoa.
PHILLIP: I'm going to let Jim have a word. Go ahead, Jim.
SCHULTZ: I think the generalizations are a bit of an overused.
PHILLIP: Yes. And let's not make more attacks. SCHULTZ: That means Tom Holman being put in charge now of what's being on the ground in Minnesota. You've also heard reporting that some of the ICE officers, a lot of the ICE officers are feeling a bit relieved now that he's in charge. So I think that goes to the point that Kevin's making that these folks are people, a lot -- lot of them are people who want to do good, that are glad that there's someone coming that's going to give them further direction, that they are going to soften some of the positions.
And look, these guys are carrying out orders from above. And the fact that Tom Holman stepping in is a good thing.
PHILLIP: There is also a big distinction between ICE and Border Patrol. They are two different agencies. They don't have the same tactics. They don't have the same training. They don't have the same mandate.
[22:10:03]
And so one of the big tensions that's been happening on the ground in these cities is that you had Greg Bovino, who's a Border Patrol sector chief, coming in and running immigration enforcement in the interior. And that's been a huge problem.
I do want to play because I think you need to hear this straight from Thom Tillis's mouth. The anger coming from this Republican senator about how immigration has been handled by the Trump administration.
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TILLIS: Stephen Miller never fails to live up to my expectations of incompetence.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you think he should resign?
TILLIS: I, you know, I'm going to leave that up to the president. I can tell you, if I were president, neither one of them would be in Washington right now.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But do you think Noem should step down?
TILLIS: I think Noem needs to decide what -- I mean, I think if Noem looks at her body of work, I could not be if I were in her position. I can't think of any point in pride over the last year. She's got to make her own decision, or the president does. She is taking this administration into the ground on an issue that we should own.
We should own the issue of border security and immigration. But they have destroyed that for Republicans, something that got the president elected. They have destroyed it through their incompetence.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So that's a really powerful point. I mean, he is right that Trump entered the White House with positive approval ratings on the issue of immigration, and now it's negative. Now you have half the country saying they'd be open to abolishing ice, more than half the country saying they are unhappy with what ICE is doing. Have they flipped this issue on its head? A winning issue for the president?
O'LEARY: I think the immediate answer to this on a bipartisan basis is a full, transparent investigation I think everybody agrees. That is the right way to start cooling things down.
Execution of this mandate is becoming scrutinized. How do you do this? How do you actually go get the 25 million illegal immigrants out of the country in? If everybody agreed to do that at the beginning of the mandate. That's not so easy. We're learning that.
Many of these people have ingrained themselves as good citizens into the country. They're providing services. They're paying their taxes. Should we kick them out? That's a big debate as well.
But anybody that's broken the laws of the United States, that came in here illegally, I don't think you're going to get a lot of support keeping them here. So how do you filter that? How do you actually keep that?
NAVARRO: Well, let me tell you something, Kevin. They are detaining and have deported people that are not here illegally. When you are here under political asylum with a political asylum claim pending, like the father and that five-year-old child, you are here legally. They have detained and deported legal permanent residents. They have wrongfully detained U.S. citizens. And I think -- and people are watching it and seeing it.
Americans are seeing it because there are brave Americans out there who are making, taking video of this. The problem with Kristi Noem is that she's lied. She has lied consistently and been caught doing it. And also, you know, you want to paint the federal agents as if they are, I don't know, some sort of saintly body. They're not -- there are fact --
O'LEARY: I believe, I believe in law enforcement. I do.
NAVARRO: There are good. There are good law enforcement.
O'LEARY: I support police.
NAVARRO: And there are bad. I do too. But there's bad ones. We have seen that there's bad ones who are prosecuted and held accountable.
O'LEARY: But that doesn't --
HONIG: Let me -- let me jump in for a second.
O'LEARY: That doesn't make 90 percent.
NAVARRO: But that's -- that's what distinguishes us from countries like Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba, that when there is bad law enforcement, we hold them accountable. And also remember that this force is very different than what we have known before because ICE -- because these federal agencies have increased dramatically in a very short time. So the level of training they are getting, the level of vetting they are getting, and then a woman gets killed and the vice president and this administration tells them they have absolute immunity.
So that's a formula for disagreement. So when you have badly trained, trigger happy newbies, armed to the teeth, militarized, a city like Minneapolis and you tell them, go out and do whatever the hell you want because we got your back, because you've got immunity.
PHILLIP: It's also notable that this is the first time that we've heard anybody in the administration talk about, you know, best practices, regulations, things that these agents are supposed to do. And the only reason they're talking about it now is because they're trying to defend Stephen Miller who came out and said that this person was a domestic terrorist.
HONIG: There's blame at all levels here. Okay, the bosses, Kristi Noem chief among them, got caught lying about what happened, right? He did not brandish a firearm. He was not a would be assassin. It's really hard to recover your credibility when you caught in a stone-cold lie like that.
Now looking, look, I've worked with cops my whole career as a prosecutor, state and federal. I was in charge of supervising state police, feds, whatever. What you're seeing on the ground from these DHS officers many of whom are border patrol people. As you know, Abby is not high-level policing. And I'll just give you one example.
[22:15:04]
I think what you're going to hear out of this investigation is the reason that we decided that lethal force was necessary because we saw he had a firearm in his waistband, right. It looks like in the back. Do you know how many NYPD officers stop somebody every day in the city who's got a firearm on them, sometimes illegally? That does not open up the floodgates to shoot that person, right? It happens all day long.
Good cops, experienced patrol cops, New Jersey State Police, NYPD, FBI, DEA, they don't just open fire when someone's got a weapon in their jacket, in their waistband, in their pocket. You need more than that. You need an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury.
And so the level of street level policing we're seeing from these folks is badly deficient.
PHILLIP: They are not trained to do street level policing.
HONIG: Exactly.
PHILLIP: And then -- and to your point, you know, dozens of guns were recovered by Minneapolis police last year. They didn't kill a single one of the people carrying those weapons.
So there's a training issue here, but there's also perhaps --
O'LEARY: Why is it all happening in Minneapolis?
PHILLIP: -- there's -- there's an accountability issue.
O'LEARY: Why is it all in Minneapolis?
PHILLIP: Look, Kevin, we actually have a lot more to talk about, so hold your thought. We'll get to it on the other side of this quick break.
We're getting our first look at the official DHS account of the shooting, including how many agents actually fired shots in this incident. But they're leaving out some very important details. Plus, breaking news tonight. A man attacked Congresswoman Ilhan Omar at a Minnesota town hall. We'll discuss that next.
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PHILLIP: Breaking news tonight, Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar says that she will not be intimidated after she was attacked while speaking at a town hall event in Minneapolis tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ILHAN OMAR (D) MINNESOTA: Face impeachment.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What is that?
OMAR: I don't know.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: You can see there that Omar was sprayed with some kind of substance while she was speaking. And she had just called on DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to resign when the man sprayed her with that substance and that liquid from a syringe. Police then arrested him. He's now facing third degree assault charges.
CNN Sara Sidner was there as it all unfolded, and she spoke to Omar just moments after the attack. Here's what she said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Representative Omar, are you okay?
OMAR: You know, I'm going to go figure if I am, but I feel okay. I feel that it is important for people, whether they are in elected office or not, to allow these people to intimidate us, to make us not fight for our constituents and for the country we love. And as I said, you know, I've survived war and I'm definitely going to survive intimidation and whatever these people think they can throw at me because I'm built that way.
SIDNER: Thank you.
OMAR: Thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So Omar has been the subject of all kinds of different attacks from conservatives for many years now. But we also know that threats against lawmakers of all kinds have been increasing dramatically, Elie. And this is just the latest incident. It seems that she was fine, but it could have been much worse.
HONIG: Well, thank God she's fine and she really stood up in a courageous way there. I'm glad that this person has been charged with assault. He also should be and can be charged with federal crime of assaulting a federal officer. Should be locked up. He should be denied bail.
Look, how can we ignore what's happening? I mean, these types of attacks are increasingly frequent, going both ways, and part of it is due to the rhetoric. So I think both parties have to be very careful about what they say someone like Ilhan Omar, look, she draws a lot of attention. She draws a lot of heat. A lot of people have said a lot of over-the-top things about her.
I don't think either side is any better than the other side when it comes to this. And this is that the scary outcome of it.
NAVARRO: The problem is, though, that one of the people who has led the charge against Ilhan Omar is Donald Trump. So when you have the guy with the biggest bully pulpit in the world, he was at Davos last week blasting Ilhan Omar to the Davos audience, I'm not sure they know who she is. And this is the second time in less than a week that something like this happens.
Let's remember that this weekend Maxwell Frost, the congressman from Orlando, was at a party in Sundance when somebody came and beat him up, punched him in the face. And it's also -- so this is, you know, what Donald Trump should do today, if he wants to deescalate what's happening? He should call Ilhan Omar and ask her how she's doing.
O'LEARY: Can I ask a question? Let me a ask a question to the panel --
PHILLIP: And I'm actually going to play what Trump had said about Omar Omar, just to refresh people's memories.
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TRUMP: Ilhan Omar is garbage. She's garbage. Her friends are garbage. They come from hell and they complain and do nothing but bitch.
I think she's terrible. I think she should be a bitch. I think she's terrible. Is she originally from Somalia?
What is going on with Omar? I've been reading these reports for two years about how corrupt and crooked she is.
She's going to tell us, she's telling us how to run our country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Kevin.
O'LEARY: Simple question. Why is all this happening in Minneapolis? Why? Why has this become the domestic war zone? What is the reason? Is there specific area that has caused this? Why?
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PHILLIP: Can I -- can I offer a --
O'LEARY: Because I think that's really the question.
PHILLIP: Can I offer an answer to you?
O'LEARY: Bipartisan basis. Why is that not a reasonable question?
PHILLIP: Let me -- let me just ask you. Let me just answer. Let me offer some possibilities.
Minneapolis is a city of fewer than 500,000 people. The Trump administration decided to send 3,000 federal officers to that one --
O'LEARY: Why did they --
PHILLIP: -- which they -- which is more than they have anywhere else including Chicago --
O'LEARY: But why do they send them --
PHILLIP: -- of 3 million, Los Angeles --
O'LEARY: But why --
PHILLIP: -- anywhere -- why? Well, according to Trump, it's because they're going after fraud. But again, Minneapolis is --
O'LEARY: Could there be fraud? Maybe.
PHILLIP: Minneapolis is -- is not unique in having jails that don't let (inaudible) but they are --
CROSS: But if not --
NAVARRO: Kevin, if you're going to go after (inaudible) you send --
PHILLIP: Thousands of federal officers on the ground. That is the only (inaudible) that is unique.
O'LEARY: Well, why don't we just talk about fraud for a minute?
CROSS: But it's not fraud, Kevin. Like that is BS.
O'LEARY: What is it?
CROSS: So he is saying fraud. O'LEARY: A lot of money missing. A lot of money missing.
CROSS: Use this and less of this.
O'LEARY: Taxpayers are asking.
CROSS: They're sending -- they're sending them -- he is targeting Minnesota because he keep claiming he won it. He has not and they are already trying to sell this (inaudible) and that --
CROSS: I think you're deflecting the issue of the money that's missing.
CROSS: I'm not deflecting because what we're talking about is a congresswoman who got attacked tonight. So you're deflecting.
O'LEARY: You know what I like about fraud? It's binary.
CROSS: So let me just -- let me just answer your question. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar was attacked tonight. That is the actual issue.
O'LEARY: What does that have to do with fraud?
CROSS: At least understandably. That's not the topic that we're talking about. You're deflecting.
O'LEARY: Well, I'm talking about fraud right now.
CROSS: Okay, well right now you're listening.
PHILLIP: Hold on, hold on, Kevin.
O'LEARY: No, I'm asking about fraud.
PHILLIP: Hold on a second.
CROSS: But right now, why don't you let me finish my point. Elie, I take your point that you think is both sides. But let me just say the data respectfully disagrees with you.
HONIG: Go ahead.
CROSS: According to government and independent analysis, since 2001, 85 percent of political deaths have been from right wing extremists. There was a study posted on the DOJ about right wing extremism being one of the biggest issues in America. Of course, it quietly disappeared when Donald Trump came into office.
When you think about the big right-wing attacks that have happened in the past 10 years or so, there was the Dylann Roof shooting, the Charleston in Charleston. There was the Tree of Life synagogue attack. There was the El Paso Walmart incident. There was the 2020 arrest of the 13 men who attempted to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
So every time I hear people say it's both sides, there is no data to back that up. And there's not even a lot of anecdotal evidence to say that. We have to start acknowledging that the side of people that the out loud racist, the people who are saying all these awful things, they are in solidly in the MAGA camp. And as long as we don't acknowledge that we're trying to sweep it under the rug. It doesn't seem like everybody in the room would --
PHILLIP: Let me let Elie respond to that.
O'LEARY: Excuse me, what about the fraud.
PHILLIP: Hold on. Hold on. I'm going to let Elie respond to that.
HONIG: I take your point. And I accept the data. I'm not saying it's exactly 50-50 equal. But let's also not forget Charlie Kirk was murdered the President --
CROSS: Not by a left wing extremist. That person espoused very rightly (inaudible).
HONIG: Look, if you look at the targets, if you look at people in office, there's --
CROSS: The right attacks the -- right.
HONIG: There's people on. But there's Josh Shapiro, there's Melissa Horton now there's Ilhan Omar on this side. There's Donald Trump on this side. There's Charlie Kirk on this side.
CROSS: But wait, you're saying that but don't know the right wing people.
HONIG: I'm not saying it's exactly mathematical -- mathematically equal.
CROSS: But it's not even analogous (inaudible). It's not even (crosstalk).
SCHULTZ: I'm not saying that the rhetoric on both sides --
HONIG: You can (inaudible) the fact that fact that there was an assassination attempt on the -- on the republican president.
CROSS: But it's not ingenious. That is BS. And even the attacks that you're referencing, Elie, those were right wing people. Like give me the --
HONIG: That's just the truth. Pardon her. That's not the right wing person.
CROSS: Yes. Why was that not (inaudible) because he --
PHILLIP: Let me get in here. Hold on, Tiffany --
CROSS: Because he -- because he identified with --
PHILLIP: Let me just try to get us to a place where we can all be talking about the same thing. Because I do think this moment is one where there is heated rhetoric that is being expressed by people on the left and people on the right. And when it comes to the threats against public figures, you can make the argument both ways that right wing violence is predominantly the problem. But in this particular moment there's -- you could argue that both parties run the risk of their rhetoric leading to violence.
O'LEARY: What about if you're not left to right, you're just a taxpayer like me, a lowly taxpayer and I'd like to investigate fraud. I want my money back that was stolen from me. Is that okay or is that not okay?
PHILLIP: Listen. That fraud --
O'LEARY: I want my money back.
PHILLIP: Well, hold on. I mean, look, Kevin, the fraud is being invested -- has been investigated.
O'LEARY: Why don't we talk about that?
PHILLIP: People are being prosecuted. The DOJ could be talking about that. But what they decided to do instead was send immigration officials into Minnesota presumptively because they thought that the fraud was coming only from foreigners when most of the Somalis who they targeting are not --
O'LEARY: I don't care where it's coming from. I want my money back.
PHILLIP: I get it. But the point is --
NAVARRO: What she is saying is that nothing -- nothing they are doing, nothing they have --
PHILLIP: None of this has to do with fraud.
NAVARRO: -- is helping you get your money back. Also --
O'LEARY: I represent taxpayers and I want my money back.
NAVARRO: Then if you represent taxpayers, then tell the president --
PHILLIP: Let me just -- let me just circle back.
O'LEARY: Blue taxpayers --
PHILLIP: Okay.
NAVARRO: That you're spending a ton of money to terrorize --
PHILLIP: Okay. Let me circle back with Jim on this one thing. Ilhan Omar in particular has been the center, and you heard it there from the president, the center of a lot of awful attacks. He called her garbage. What should the president do? Should he pick up the phone and call
her? Should he? Should anybody say enough is enough? We need tone this down when it, particularly when it comes to her.
[22:30:06]
SCHULTZ: We should be saying enough is enough across the board on these things. This particular incident, the Josh Shapiro incident, all of them, where the President did pick up the phone and call Josh Shapiro after he had his house burned down in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. You know, those types of things happen. Should he pick up the phone and call Ilhan Omar? That's up to Donald Trump whether he wants to do that.
If I were the president, I'd pick up the phone and make that phone call.
PHILLIP: Here's the thing, though. Donald Trump is actually responsible for the vitriol. So is there going to be any acknowledge -- acknowledgement of that? Should there be?
SCHULTZ: Well, if he, like I said, if I were the president, I'd pick up the phone and call Ilhan Omar to see if she's okay the next day. Because this is -- this is -- that's what we do as Americans. We should pick up the phone and care about someone on the other side, even though you vehemently disagree with everything they say.
PHILLIP: All right, next for us, more breaking news. DHS is releasing its first report of the Alex Pretti shooting. And there is something that is notably missing from that report. We'll tell you when we come back.
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[22:35:39]
PHILLIP: Tonight, we're hearing Homeland Security's version of what led to Alex Pretti's death. CNN has reviewed the Department's initial report to Congress, and according to DHS, they claim that Pretti resisted arrest. And during the struggle, an agent yelled, "He's got a gun," multiple times. According to their timeline, five seconds later two agents discharged their firearms at Pretti, and it's unclear if both of them struck him.
The report also claims that after the shooting an agent said, that he had Pretti's gun. But what is missing in this report is any mention of Pretti brandishing the weapon, as Kristi Noem initially claimed. It also doesn't mention that Pretti's firearm was removed by an officer before the shooting.
The videos, like this one, show an agent taking the gun from Pretti while he's on the ground, right there, circled in red, and before the first shots were fired. And this video is from a different angle. It shows the agent running away with Pretti's gun. And then moments later, you hear those gunshots.
So, it's no surprise if you've been following officer-involved incidents that the initial report, frankly, is usually wrong. And this is no exception.
SCHULTZ: No doubt about it. I mean, we've all seen the video. We saw what happened in the video. And it's not -- the initial account isn't accurate. So, there is no surprise in that. There was a lot of rush to judgment in a lot of this from the bottom to the top, it appears. And now, it's all getting walked back at this point.
I think what Kevin said earlier was important is that I think we can all agree that there needs to be a full investigation. You know, Eli said the same thing earlier. Senator McCormick called for it. A number of other senators have called for it on the Republican side. It's the right thing to do. We have to get it right.
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Including local authority.
SCHULTZ: And it's all -- all about training. It's all about training. It's all about getting an investigation right. It's making sure that you have the right people in the streets handling these types of situations. It appears in this instance, we didn't --
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ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: I want to raise a flag --
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PHILLIP: Skepticism -- there's plenty of skepticism about this particular investigation.
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HONIG: I want to raise a flag right now about what we're seeing with this investigation because all indications are that this is not being handled the way a criminal investigation would be handled, right? First of all, it's being led by DHS.
When you have a federal law enforcement agent involved in a fatal shooting, typically, historically, it's run by the FBI working with DOJ prosecutors. There's no apparent DOJ or prosecutorial presence here. It's being run by DHS, freezing out the locals, also something you don't do.
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PHILLIP: Almost like an internal investigation --
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HONIG: It's almost like an internal review. PHILLIP: -- which is a completely different type of --
HONIG: They're investigating one of their own. And their leader, Kristi Noem, has already made false prejudging statements about it. And so -- and on top of that, we've already seen the very recent precedent of DOJ coming out, Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, days after the Renee Good shooting saying there will be no civil rights investigation.
That's the criminal charge that would apply here. All indications are that, look, some investigation is better than none, but all indications we have right now are that this is not a full and independent criminal investigation. It's something else.
PHILLIP: Another thing to add to that, I mean, one of the witnesses, a key witness who was there, she spoke to Anderson Cooper tonight, said she hasn't heard from anybody about this.
KEVIN O'LEARY, CHAIRMAN, O'LEARY ADVENTURES: And that's exactly the problem. Yes.
PHILLIP: That seems crazy to me.
O'LEARY: Yes.
PHILLIP: I don't know about you, but --
O'LEARY: Seems to be early days on this one because that's a very damning video. It's very difficult to get through that. And I don't think, as you're suggesting, it's going to be covered up. I think this will be full transparency by the time it's over. And what you're talking about could be changed instantly if it's going to be a criminal investigation.
NAVARRO: What makes you think there's going to be full transparency when there hasn't been full transparency on Renee Good?
O'LEARY: Because it's hard to watch that video unless it's altered somehow. That's very difficult to reconcile.
PHILLIP: But if they don't investigate at all, the video doesn't matter. If they don't actually launch an investigation, it's not going to matter.
O'LEARY: I don't think that's good enough in this situation. That does not look good.
PHILLIP: They're still calling him an agitator.
HONIG: I'm not saying there's going to be a cover-up. I'm saying the way this investigation is structured, they're not even going to consider the possibility of search.
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HONIG: Based on the structure, yes. I mean -- O'LEARY: I think that's a little speculative.
HONIG: -- because where are the prosecutors then? Where's DOJ? Because whenever you have a situation like --
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HONIG: --whenever you have a situation like this where there's that much evidence that we see on the video, and a rational person could look at that and say, this might be an excessive use of force, you would already have DOJ, specifically the Civil Rights Division, which has been gutted under this administration, and the Public Integrity Section working with the FBI.
[22:40:15]
The FBI here has a secondary role. DOJ, prosecutors are nowhere to be found, and the state's been frozen up.
O'LEARY: Have we seen any police cams yet? That is just citizens being --
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PHILLIP: But yes, I mean, that's another big question. There's body cam -- is -- was it on? Do we have that video? Where's Alex Pretti's video? He had a cell phone. Where is that cell phone? Whose possession is it in?
O'LEARY: So, I would think all of this is going to --
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PHILLIP: There are a lot of questions, Tiffany, that's left.
TIFFANY CROSS, AUTHOR, "LOVE ME": I mean, I feel like I'm in the bizarre world. I think the key thing that you said is if you're a rational person, we see this time and time again. We saw this after Renee Good's murder. It was like all of a sudden, we're just going to say that she was charging this guy with her car, when she clearly was not.
When "The New York Times" did that that frame-by-frame analysis after days of people saying, oh, but some people saw this. I saw people have psychiatrists on. Why are people seeing two different things instead of just saying they are lying.
The fact that Tom Homan is coming there and he's supposed to be this voice of reason, that gives me zero confidence. First of all, he's a full-throated election denier. He's just as bad as half the other people. He's just as bad as Kristi Noem, the puppy killer.
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CROSS: So, what? If she (inaudible) from Barack Obama, that is wrong. And I can say Barack Obama is wrong. That's the difference between being a rational person and a member of a cult where you cannot call out the leader who's doing something wrong. I won't support any leader who tolerates violence and policies like this.
Tom Homan is a huge problem. He is -- he also is on record as having met with the Proud Boys on several occasions, which again makes me question --
O'LEARY: What's the Proud Boys thing?
CROSS: -- who are some of the people.
CROSS: The Proud Boy thing is I think that there are some people who --
O'LEARY: What does that have to do with that?
CROSS: -- are aligned ideologically with people who espouse a racist belief and have been given a weapon to go out and pull --
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CROSS: -- streets of Minnesota.
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O'LEARY: You know, I understand, but --
SCHULTZ: He's also reported to have disagreed with the tactics they're using in Minneapolis and they've also put a guy in charge who doesn't report to Kristi Noem.
(CROSSTALK)
CROSS: But I would encourage the audience to look at his interview with Tucker Carlson and listen to the absolutely important things that he's espousing on that.
PHILLIP: These might be shades of gray here because there are some people who want the same objective but they just want to carry it out a different way. We'll see what Tom Homan actually ends up doing when he is on the ground. But so far, he's been calling the governor and the mayor saying that they are going to work together after weeks and weeks of this tension.
Next for us, the rhetoric on the right is starting to change now after the shooting despite going a year of supporting ICE on American streets. We'll discuss that turnaround.
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[22:47:24]
PHILLIP: For a year, Republicans have been in lockstep with Donald Trump's rhetoric and actions on ICE. But now, after killings and public opinion turning, they are suddenly changing their tunes.
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GOV. GREG ABBOTT (R) TEXAS: They, being the White House, need to recalibrate on what needs to be done. They have the full authority to assist ICE and have been deputized to assist ICE doing everything ICE would do, such as apprehending, arresting, deporting, soup to nuts of what ICE will do.
SEAN HANNITY, "THE HANNITY SHOW" HOST: Do I think that going into Home Depots and arresting people there is a good idea? I don't. Earlier this week, ICE broke their arrest record on back to back days with nearly 2300 arrests on Tuesday.
CHRIS MADEL, DROPPED OUT OF MN GOV RACE DUE TO GOP "RETRIBUTION": Operation Metro Search has expanded far beyond its stated focus on true public safety threats. I was actually not only pleasantly surprised by some of these arrests of getting some of these people off the streets, but I also found it shocking that anybody is not -- is trying to attack ICE with respect to this.
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PHILLIP: A reminder. For months, Republicans justified these ICE raids saying that America voted for this and that mass deportations was what Trump had promised. Back in 2023, Stephen Miller told "The New York Times" that Trump would, quote, "unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular immigration crackdown". He also foreshadowed widespread workplace raids and other sweeps in public places, with the goal being to detain many people at once.
And so, now that this is happening and it's unpopular, people are changing their tune. But Jim, I think one of the things about this is that we can have a whole big policy debate. But for many Americans, the moral problems with this were apparent from the very beginning. Why wasn't it apparent to some of these people that we just played?
SCHULTZ: I have no idea. I mean, look. The large majority of Americans that voted for Donald Trump, I believe, were supportive of cracking down on illegal immigrants who committed crimes, right? But this door-to-door effort of folks going in with administrative warrants that are signed off by ICE agents, not signed off by a judge, I don't think America voted for that.
And the optics associated with that, people going into people's homes, rounding people up at Home Depot. You know, all of those things, you know, I -- that wasn't something that I think people voted for, and I think there needs to be a change to the tactics.
[22:50:00]
PHILLIP: Tiffany?
CROSS: Let me just say, I think we talk a lot about what happens at ICE at the onset, but what happens next is people go to detention centers. And right now, according to human rights watch groups and journalists, there are people there right now being assaulted, abused. Food is being rationed.
There are, as of December, at least 3800 children, people under the age of 18, who are there. Mothers say they don't get diaper cream. There are people who are being denied life-saving medication right now. And we've already seen what happens in even more deplorable places like CECOT.
So, while we sit here and talk about, you know, ridiculous things and policy, and allow people to defend the most abhorrent things, there is somebody right now, thousands of people suffering -- suffering, sitting somewhere hungry, cold, without medicine and being abused at the hands of some of these officers. So, I think that's something to focus on and think about.
PHILLIP: Yes, you just reminded me. I mean, we had Josh Rogan on our Saturday show and he was talking about an immigrant who had been detained by immigration officials at his check in, his regular check in. He was the only caretaker for his ill son. His son died. And Josh just posted that ICE denied that father the ability to attend his son's funeral.
NAVARRO: His son was intellectually disabled and he was the primary -- the only caregiver.
PHILLIP: There is a cruelty to what has been happening here that Americans are now saying enough about. And now, it's only then that Republican lawmakers are also saying the same --
(CROSSTALK)
HONIG: Even if one is very much in favor of closed borders and aggressive deportation policies, the execution here has been atrocious. And when you are a prosecutor, or when you are an ICE official, you are given an enormous amount of power.
And with that, you have to exercise some discretion, some common sense, some humanity. So, if you have a case like this, is it worth it? Do we need to lock this father up with a sick kid, with a kid who needs help? And we're seeing none of that.
And more to the point, we are seeing judges now calling out ICE and the administration for not even giving basic due process rights. So, it was a decision issued earlier today by a George W. Bush-appointed judge calling out ICE because he ordered ICE to release, not release him, but give bail to somebody by January 21st, so, six days ago. And it has not been done. And this judge, in the opinion, loses his temper. He says, I've never been ignored like this.
NAVARRO: But we are seeing -- we're seeing the truth because of the people that have gone out to the street and filmed the truth, and it's been amplified by so many others. We are knowing the truth because of journalists who have looked at the numbers and published the truth.
ICE and DHS Kristi Noem has been lying from the get-go. She has been saying from the get-go that these were the worst of the worst. These were rapists and murderers, as has Donald Trump. The vast majority of the people detained by ICE do not have serious criminal convictions. The vast majority of the men that they sent to that hellhole in El Salvador, who they said they were sending Tren de Aragua did not have gang affiliations or criminal convictions.
So, people may have voted and were in favor of deporting the worst of the worst. They are not in favor of trampling human rights, of trampling due process, of trampling civil rights, of trampling pregnant women, chasing children. And we are seeing a racial profiling.
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O'LEARY: - all the criticism we put on social media, look at what it's done here. It's shone the light of transparency onto all these grievances you're talking about. We would have never had any of this without social media.
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: -- they killed a man brandishing a phone.
(CROSSTALK)
O'LEARY: Whether you like it or you don't --
PHILLIP: Speaking of people who are coming out of the woodworks to talk about what's happening in the country right now, one of them is the First Lady, Melania Trump. Let me play what she had to say.
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UNKNOWN: What is your message for America about unifying both sides?
MELANIA TRUMP, FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We need to unify. I'm calling for unity. I know my husband, the President, had a great call yesterday with the governor and the mayor, and they're working together to make it peaceful and without riots. I'm against the violence. So if --please, if you protest, protest in peace. And we need to unify in these times.
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CROSS: Please give me a break. Can I just say about Melania Trump, the First Lady, an immigrant herself, who was the recipient of an Einstein visa, still to this day, nobody knows what this former nude model did to earn the Einstein visa to get here. Her Slovenian-born parents were granted citizenship in 2018.
[22:55:01]
Part of that chain migration, Republicans say they hate so much. She is not a victim. She is a villain. And this effort to make her -- to cleanse her reputation, look. Jeff Bezos can throw $40 million at her documentary.
NAVARRO: Seventy-five, actually. CROSS: $75 million --
NAVARRO: -- may include a $35 million of marketing.
CROSS: Precisely. It will do little to cleanse the disgrace that she brought to the White House. Not as baby number one, or two, or three.
(CROSSTALK)
SCHULTZ: So, you want to --
(CROSSTALK)
SCHULTZ: -- the rhetoric -- call the First Lady of the United States a villain.
PHILLIP: All right --
CROSS: She is a villain and a former nude model.
PHILLIP: -- we got to go.
(CROSSTALK)
SCHULTZ: But turn down the rhetoric.
CROSS: I never said turn down the rhetoric. I'm being truthful.
PHILLIP: All right, everybody. Thank you very much for being here. We will be back in just a moment.
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[23:00:13]
PHILLIP: Tomorrow night, CNN is live from Minneapolis as residents question officials and community leaders. Anderson Cooper and Sara Sidner will moderate "State of Emergency, Confronting the Crisis in Minnesota," a CNN town hall that begins Wednesday at 8 P.M. Or you can watch it on the CNN app. Thank you very much for watching "NewsNight". 'Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
