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Hegseth Arrives for First day as Defense Secretary; White House and Colombia Reach Deal; Immigration Crackdown Intensifying; Trump Fires Inspectors General. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired January 27, 2025 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Accountable. I know the chairman agrees with that. The lawful orders of the president of the United States will be executed inside this Defense Department swiftly and without excuse.

We will be no better friend to our allies and no stronger adversary to those who want to test us and try us.

So, Mr. Chairman, thanks for welcoming me today.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You bet. My pleasure.

HEGSETH: I look forward to serving the troops, the warriors of this department. It's the honor of a lifetime. And we're going to get to work.

God bless you all.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).

HEGSETH: This right here is Jorge Oliveira. He was killed in Afghanistan on - he was asked about what I wear on my wrist every single day. It was a troop I served with. A soldier I served with in Guantanamo Bay when I was a platoon leader. He was killed in Afghanistan, not in my unit, but when I was there. It's these guys that we do this for, those that have given the ultimate sacrifice.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) additional troops be sent to the border soon?

HEGSETH: Whatever is needed at the border will be provided. Whether that is through state active duty, Title 32 or Title 10. Because we have - we are reorienting - this is a shift. This is not the way business has been done in the past. This is the Defense Department will support the defense of the territorial integrity of the United States of America at the southern border, to include reservists, National Guard, and active duty in compliance with the Constitution and the laws of our land and the directives of the commander in chief.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The possibility of invoking the Insurrection Act, yes? HEGSETH: Those will be decisions made by the White House. I look forward to conversations about anything we need to do to ensure we're securing our southern border.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. Secretary, how are you going to change military training?

HEGSETH: I'm sorry.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you going to change military training?

HEGSETH: Military training will be focused on the readiness of what our troops in the field need to deter our enemies. More rapid fielding. More - more - more rapid opportunity to train as we fight will be something we want our units to do across the spectrum.

One more.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Staff and other members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

HEGSETH: And I'm with him right now. I look forward to working with them.

Thank you.

There will be an executive order on (INAUDIBLE).

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: That is the new secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, arriving at the Pentagon for his first day on the job there. Sorry, I - he was still speaking there.

He, again, he was confirmed late Friday night. Needed Vice President J.D. Vance to break a tie. So, by a single vote, three Republican senators voted against him, including Mitch McConnell, who put out a lengthy statement saying that now Secretary Hegseth was simply not up to the job.

Nevertheless, he is there on his first full day. He spoke about some of his priorities.

Let's get to Natasha Bertrand.

Natasha, what will this look like over the coming days and weeks?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, I just have to say, I have to point out here that one of the more striking aspects of his appearance on the steps there entering into the Pentagon was the fact that chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General C.Q. Brown, was there to greet him. Someone that Hegseth, before he was nominated to serve as secretary of defense, had said should actually be removed from his position because he is a, quote, "woke" and he is part of the cadre of generals that needs to be eliminated from the military.

So, the fact that it appears that Hegseth is trying to have a good relationship with Brown, and Brown, of course, is - is also trying - is an interesting data point, to say the least.

In terms of what we can expect, Hegseth did lay out several executive orders that he does expect the president to be signing today that could reshape the military, including, he said, an Iron Dome for America, which is - which is a new one that we had not heard previously, reinstating service members who were banned from the military, discharged from the military because they refused to get the Covid vaccine back in 2021. We should note that that was actually a repeal to that vaccine mandate back in 2023, and service members were then allowed to rejoin the military. This apparently will go a step further and will give those service members back pay, though it remains to be seen how exactly the Defense Department is going to be implementing that policy.

And he also talked a little bit about the border. And he said that this is a shift that DOD is going to be reorienting resources to the border to defend the territorial integrity of the United States. Really underscoring what we have seen over the last week, which is a surge of military resources to the border, additional troops, including active duty troops, headed to the southern border, as well as, strikingly, those military flights that we have seen engaging in repatriation of migrants back to their own home countries, which was something that was particularly controversial over the weekend, of course, when Colombia's president refused to accept for a time those military flights heading into Colombia.

[09:05:01]

So clearly, you know, Hegseth, he also put an emphasis there on anti- DEI programs. Something that he tweeted about over the weekend as well. DOD does not equal DEI according to a tweet, a handwritten note that he tweeted out over the weekend. So, that is going to be a priority as well.

We're going to see a continuation, really, of the priorities that were laid out in the very first week of the Trump administration that were conducted under the acting defense secretary. Now it seems that Pete Hegseth is going to continue that.

John.

BERMAN: Natasha Bertrand, so great to have you here for this important context, which I missed there seeing the new secretary with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, which apparently is at least a temporary detente in the secretary's call to have him removed from that job.

All right, Natasha, thank you very much.

Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Natasha mentioned Colombia and the standoff there. Let's talk about that.

A standoff with U.S. ally over deportation flights went from super hot to super over just this weekend. Today, a deportation deal has been reached with Colombia, allowing the U.S. military planes to land and deliver deportees to the country. We're now waiting to learn when the first plane will arrive there and we'll do just that.

This all really took off yesterday. Colombia turned away two U.S. military planes carrying migrants. Colombia's president calling the Trump administration's treatment of migrants inhumane. And then President Trump responded, threatening a 25 percent tariff, to slap that on Colombia, and also said that it would jump to 50 percent if Colombia continued to reject the flights. And also there is a threatened travel ban for Colombian officials. The standoff, though, ending just a few hours ago.

CNN's Priscilla Alvarez is tracking this one for us.

What is the White House saying about this now this morning?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, they're essentially saying that these tariff threats are held in reserve. They have the right to impose them should Colombia not follow through on this agreement.

But to step back here, Colombia has over recent weeks, months, years accepted deportation flights. The difference, however, was that they were on civilian aircraft, not military aircraft.

Now, I have been told by sources that Colombia had approved of the two military flights carrying Colombian nationals back to the country over the weekend, but it was the Colombian president's post on X that brought that to an abrupt halt, surprising the Trump administration, as well as officials within his own government. And what he seemed to imply was that he took issue with the military aircraft being used instead of the civilian aircraft, which has generally been the way that it has gone.

Now, as you mentioned, of course, a last-minute deal was struck. So, tariffs are, for now, off the table. Similarly, the retaliatory measures that the Colombian president had threatened appear to be on the back burner for now.

But these are two countries that have been allies. And now we saw this public feud play out over the weekend over again the president's signature issue of immigration. Now, it's telling the way that the president responded to this because the U.S., in other cases, has had to navigate that some countries won't take back repatriations, Venezuela is an example of that, because of frosty relations between the United States and Venezuela. That was generally not the case with Colombia. Again, the president taking issue with these two flights.

But all the same, the president willing to put these tariffs, which would have put them at an economic war. So, we were just on the brink of that before this deal was struck. And something that he is trying to signal, sources tell me, to the world as a warning, a warning shot to those countries who are going to push back or may push back when they try to deport their citizens.

BOLDUAN: Priscilla, great to see you. Thank you so much for your reporting this morning,

John.

BERMAN: All right, happening now, there is new video of immigration raids across the country. CNN has learned that agents are being told to dress for the cameras as they make arrests. In other words, it seems to look for this publicity. ICE officials say nearly 1,000 arrests were made in - around the country, including in Chicago, in one single day. That's about three times more than the average made on each day.

Let's get right to CNN's Rosa Flores, live in Chicago, for the latest.

Good morning, Rosa.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John.

We are learning more about the types of arrests that are being made from the families of the individuals who saw their loved ones being arrested.

This first story comes from CNN affiliate WLS. This arrest was made in the Chicago area. And WLS interviewed a woman who says that their father of 44 years of age, a grandfather, was arrested yesterday. They say that ICE knocked on his door and he opened the door and he was arrested. According to his daughter, he arrived in the United States about 30 years ago from Mexico.

And this, of course, is a very emotional moment for this woman.

[09:10:02]

Here's what she had to say. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

YELITZA MARQUINA, LIVES IN WAUKEGAN, ILLINOIS: They will open the door because they thought maybe one of us were in trouble or something, or something happened to us. He never think that they would have been ICE.

I'm already heartbroken myself. Like, I can't really imagine little kids whose families are breaking apart because of this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLORES: ICE says that they are focusing on individuals who are public safety threats or national security threats. Individuals with criminal backgrounds. We don't know anything about this man that was arrested yesterday here in the Chicago area, but we have asked ICE.

Now, let's step back to talk about what this has created in the Chicago area within the migrant and immigrant community. I can tell you that there is extreme panic from talking to organization leaders and contacts and sources here. They tell me that there is a sense of panic.

And one of the examples that they used is an anecdote of a family from Venezuela, a migrant family who arrived here about two years ago. They have two young girls, elementary school aged, and they say that they have not left their homes since Trump took office. Since he was inaugurated last week. So, this is two elementary age girls who have not gone to school. Their parents have not gone to work. They are cooped up in their apartment. This organization learned about them, and so they have been dropping off groceries. And this organization tells me that the number of individuals who now need groceries because they're cooped up in their homes has grown.

And so those are the types of stories that we're starting to hear about in the Chicago area as this focus on Chicago clamps down.

So, John, we're going to continue monitoring the situation. I'm talking to a lot of contacts and sources to try to learn more about the arrests that happened here in Chicago yesterday, and also asking ICE about more information regarding these arrests.

John.

BERMAN: It's great to have you there pushing for answers to this.

Rosa Flores, in Chicago, thank you very much.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Coming up for us, three of Donald Trump's more controversial cabinet picks are headed to Capitol Hill this week. Among them, Trump's pick to lead America's public health agencies. And a former secretary of HHS is speaking out now, saying RFK Jr. is dangerous. She is our guest.

And the big game is all set. Now it's time to prepare your Super Bowl spread. How much it could cost you this year.

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[09:17:03]

BERMAN: All right, this morning, some descent, maybe not major, but the first scent of it from some Republicans with some of the actions taken from the new Trump administration. Quote, this is from "The Hill," "some Republican lawmakers are grumbling over President Trump's kitchen cabinet of billionaire allies. Senator Kevin Cramer said he wished Trump had some firefighters and other working class heroes to balance out the billionaires on stage with him at the inauguration. I was thinking that it would be nice to have some firefighters and soup kitchen operators, he said."

With us now is Maria Cardona, a CNN political commentator and Democratic strategist, and CNN's senior political commentator Scott Jennings. He's a former senior adviser to Senator Mitch McConnell and a former special assistant to President George W. Bush.

And - and I don't want to talk about the kitchen cabinet thing as much as the - sort of the smattering of small dissent that we've heard over the last three or four days. You had your old boss, Scott, Mitch McConnell, voting no on Pete Hegseth. You've got Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton saying they wish that President Trump hadn't removed the security details from John Bolton and others. You got Chuck Grassley overnight saying, what's going on with President Trump illegally firing these inspectors general?

So, Scott, my question to you is, how much louder will dissent like this get, might it get, and when do you think it will cross a line that it would impede President (INAUDIBLE) from certain actions?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, first of all, I think it's natural for a party that has such a broad constituency now to have some dissent. I mean you've got - this party is so large and he's got such an ideologically diverse set of supporters. You're going to get some of this, number one. And that's OK.

Number two, you know, the real meat of what Donald Trump is trying to accomplish is going to come in the policy enactment of what will come through this reconciliation package. And so, you know, if you have a few Republicans today criticizing on small issues here and there, that's different than if people en masse decided they didn't want to support the Trump agenda when Congress gets around to passing that here in the next couple of months.

So, I think a little bit of dissent is natural and fine. I think they'll handle it internally. And Trump should listen. These are his allies on Capitol Hill and he should talk to them and listen to them and see how they can work better together.

But the big ticket issues, taxes, energy, immigration, the things where they're really trying to change the country, a, there's no dissent now, and, b, I think there's going to be widespread support for what Trump's doing in the Republican Party. You'll see no dissent for that on Capitol Hill.

BERMAN: So, Maria, what do you think the likelihood is that President Trump listens to these concerns that some Republicans are raising with some of the things he's done?

MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Zero, because I don't think he cares. Look, and this is what we've seen from the very beginning, he is acting like an imperial president because he was handed an imperial presidency by the Supreme Court. And, frankly, all of this dissent now that you're talking about, John, really doesn't matter because where was it before when Trump was very clear as to what he was going to do?

[09:20:10]

So, Scott's right, I mean the agenda that President Trump put forward is no secret. And so all of this dissent right now to me kind of means nothing among their own party if they don't really do anything about it.

Now, we did see Scott's old boss, Mitch McConnell, show some spine when he voted against Pete Hegseth, which is a horrific pick for the Defense Department. But sadly, it wasn't enough to keep him from being there. We'll see what happens when these other picks come up for nomination for the vote. Tulsi Gabbard, RFK Jr., Kash Patel, which I believe are some of the most dangerous. And I know that there has been some grumblings and some dissent, even among Republicans, about those. That's when we'll really see, John, whether those people who are now complaining and grumbling and dissenting, will they show the backbone to really put their money where their dissent is and show that they can go up against Trump when it really matters, when these are going to be positions of such power and influence that are going to make decisions of life and death over the American people? I doubt it. I doubt that there will be enough of dissent on behalf of the Republican Party, I hope I'm wrong, to be able to keep them from the positions of power. But we'll see.

BERMAN: Scott, I wanted to give you a chance to respond to that before I move to inflation.

JENNINGS: Yes. Well, I'll just say that it wasn't the Supreme Court that handed Donald Trump anything. It was the voters of the United States of America who gave him the popular vote and the Electoral College. He's acting on their behalf after having won the election. He's enacting the agenda that they asked him to enact. And so whether it's on immigration, personnel, foreign diplomacy, as we saw over the weekend, this is what the mandate is. And right now he's got pretty high approval. In fact, Donald Trump has a higher approval rating today than he's ever had in his entire political career. So, people seem to like it.

BERMAN: So, Scott, one of the things he did run on was the economy and inflation. And I get that he's, what, five or six or seven now days into the job. But one of the things, when you do push forward a muscular administration in trying to make a lot of changes is that ultimately you then carry a lot of responsibility. And I'm not going to play the sound again, but J.D. Vance was asked about the economy and prices and whether or not any of the executive orders had addressed that directly.

I do wonder from you what you think - how much - how much runway you think there is before this administration I think more overtly puts the focus towards economic issues, toward prices, toward things like that. You talked about this reconciliation plan. But there are some risks, right? You know, the market's tanking this morning over something not completely related to this, but sometimes the economy does weird things, Scott.

JENNINGS: Yes. Well, first of all, I think anybody that's out making criticism about prices of anything after five days of a presidency is not someone you should listen to. If that is your political argument today, you're showing just how empty you are and exactly why Democrats lost the last election. They obviously understand nothing about how the American people are processing this.

Number two, you get your next report card at the midterm. I mean, November 2026, voters will go back to the polls and they're going to register a verdict on how the party in power is doing. The party in power is a Republican Party. We control everything, small margins, but we control everything. And they're going to expect some progress on issues, immigration, economy, energy prices. I mean those are the big ticket issues. And they're also going to assess how they feel about their own lives. Do you - do they still feel the same economic anxiety that they were feeling under the last administration? And do they feel that the policies that have been put in place are working or are moving towards working?

So, you get your next report card at the midterm. And I think - I think he's got that kind of leash to enact an agenda. I mean, Joe Biden was in office for four years. It got pretty bad. And that's why Donald Trump won the election. So, I don't think people out screaming about egg prices after five days are very credible at the moment, John.

BERMAN: Maria.

CARDONA: I would say that it is going to be something that voters are going to vote on in the next two years. There's no question about that. But they do expect for Donald Trump, who promised them that he was going to prioritize bringing down the prices of their groceries, their gas and their rent, for him to prioritize bringing down the prices of their groceries, their gas and their rent. And he has done everything but that.

[09:24:48]

And, in fact, the things that he has focused on are things that economists have said across the board will be things that will increase the prices of people's groceries, gas and rent, like the mass deportation raids that we are now seeing, which besides being completely focused on malevolence and cruelty and separating families, and we saw that report that, you know, they focused on a gentleman who was a grandfather who's been here for 30 years. And, I don't know, maybe he is on a most wanted list, but I kind of doubt it, but we'll see. And the quota is that now ICE is demanding from their agents doesn't seem to me are very targeted. And then the tariffs, the tariff wars that Donald is now focusing on every single day, both of those things are going to increase the prices of groceries, gas and rent, which is a betrayal of the American people and what Trump promised them.

BERMAN: Well, it will be interesting to see if any of the tariffs actually go into effect or if he keeps using them as a threat.

Maria Cardona, Scott Jennings, thanks to both of you. Appreciate it.

CARDONA: Thanks, John.

BERMAN: So, there is some economic stuff happening right now.

We're minutes away from the opening bell. Tech stocks have just taken a battering. Stock futures way, way down. We're going to tell you why this is happening and how some assumptions people had about artificial intelligence have been shaken to the core.

And the president's nominee for health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., heads to Capitol Hill. Where do prospects for his nomination stand?

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