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Protesters Gather After Woman Shot in Minnesota; ICE Shooting Sparks Outrage; Peggy Flanagan is Interviewed about Protests in Minnesota; Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) is Interviewed about the Clash in Minnesota. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired January 08, 2026 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Authorities out on the scene. We're live on the ground as narratives from federal agents diverge from local law enforcement.

Also, only time will tell. That's what President Trump is saying in a brand new interview about how long his administration will demand direct oversight of Venezuela.

And three workers are recovering after the bridge they were working on suddenly collapsed into the water.

I'm Sara Sidner, with John Berman and Kate Bolduan. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, this morning, a new image into CNN of Renee Nicole Good. She is the 37-year-old mother who was fatally shot by an ICE agent in Minneapolis.

And we do have new video in overnight giving us this new view of what happened. Good's SUV highlighted there. The agents converge on the vehicle as it moves, and that's when the shots are fired.

Now, CNN has reviewed this video and found that it shows the SUV had been stationary and positioned across the road there for about three minutes. It's unclear why.

Trump administration officials, including the president, have said Good was trying to run over one of the officers, and he shot her in self-defense. But state and local authorities dispute that narrative.

And this morning there are new protests as calls grow for a complete and full and independent investigation.

CNN's Ryan Young is live at a protest in Saint Paul this morning.

Ryan, what are you seeing?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John, since the first time we joined you, the protesters have taken up a new tactic, they've split up and they're covering all the gates here outside the facility where they believe ICE is operating. So, they're covering this gate here, and then they're covering this gate up here.

And we've actually seen some men drive by who had masks on their face, kind of honking their horn and trying to get through this crowd. So, you understand, there is a lot of anger in this area when it comes to this protest.

Now, going back toward this gate, they're surging forward toward this federal building to make sure that people can't get their cars out. And, actually, they're telling the ICE agents on the other side, or people they believe are ICE agents, that they should go home.

We have been walking through and talking to some folks. And if you guys don't mind, I saw your signs. If you don't mind, share your signs with our crowd here. If you don't mind.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sure.

YOUNG: What brought you here today to express your anger about what happened?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, ICE terrorized my daughter's school at Roosevelt High School in south Minneapolis yesterday afternoon, gas, and attacked teachers, our assistant principal, and our students. So, I came out again this morning. I was out yesterday because of the murder of Renee Good. And we will not stand for this. This is not democracy. This is a federal government trying to be a dictator and destroy our democracy.

YOUNG: What's the initial feeling after watching that video yesterday? How did you feel about what you witnessed when you saw the video?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wasn't surprised. I wasn't -- it doesn't put it past them. I was not surprised. But sheer anger. Absolute anger and disgust.

YOUNG: Thank you. Thank you for sharing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

YOUNG: And you're here as well.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

YOUNG: What was that like at your high school yesterday?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I wasn't there to experience it personally, but I saw staff members, teachers, counselors, students that I see and love every day getting gassed, being pinned down on school property, and students being chased out of their own school, which is a place of education. I was mortified.

YOUNG: Thank you, ladies.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.

YOUNG: Thank you so much. Thank you. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.

YOUNG: So, as we walk this direction, this gate here is where they're putting a lot of emphasis on to make sure that the agents or whoever's here can't get in and out. It's a constant -- or a reflection of them actually calling out gate numbers so they can move along and block it off. So, this is just the beginning, they say. This is going to be going on throughout the day.

John.

BERMAN: It is just the beginning, as you say. 8:03 a.m. Central Time there. We'll have you there, continue to monitor the situation. Ryan Young, thank you very much.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, thank you so much, John.

Trump administration officials are claiming Renee Good weaponized her vehicle and tried to run over the ICE agent who fatally shot her. But multiple eyewitnesses have said she was just trying to get away.

Here's what one told CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EMILY HELLER, WITNESS: They were telling her to leave. They were telling her to move. And then, all of a sudden, they were -- they were -- seemed like they were trying to get her. So, they were telling her to move. And then, in a split second, they were saying -- they -- they were trying to get her out of the car. So, it was like, she was trying to move one -- once they were trying to get in her -- in her car, she was, of course, she wanted to leave at that point. They were extremely aggressive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Joining me now is CNN chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller.

Glad to have you here.

You have been looking over a multitude of these videos. And as someone who's former law enforcement, what did you see here?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, I mean, you look at the videos and they become your knowledge of this case because there's a lot we don't know outside the videos.

[09:05:06]

For instance, we don't know if she and her vehicle were one of those people that were following ICE agents along on operations or trying to block their cars. What we do know is her car was pulled out into the street. But as we go to the videos, you know, you learn some things. When the

first car goes around, you can see her waving them through. But this car, even though waved through, stops and then they engage with her. So, was the idea that she was waving them through and not obstructing them, or did these agents have a prior encounter with her? We don't know that. But we do know, when you go to the next video, when they get out of the car, one of the agents appears to be walking very slowly. The other one appears to go directly, quickly to the car and put hands on the car and say, get out of the car.

SIDNER: Yes.

MILLER: That's when she backs up, turns the wheels to the right, and appears to be trying to get away.

Again, we can't put ourselves inside her mind, but she probably thinks, get out of the car means you're being arrested. That means something if you're a protester who's been following them around and blocking their path. It means something if you have nothing to do with that. Again, these are gaps. But it appears that she is trying to turn right to go down that street and not be pulled out of the car when the shots are fired from across the street.

SIDNER: What does training, law enforcement training, tell you when you are faced with a situation such as this? You have three officers that come up to the vehicle eventually, one of whom seems to be standing almost in front, or if not in front of the car. And we saw the result of that when he fired his gun. There is a picture of the bullet hole in the windshield. So clearly, he was close enough to the front of the car. What does training tell you to do?

MILLER: Well, training tells you a couple of things. Number one, across the -- across the country, among the 15 major cities, the police departments have adopted a doctrine which is, do not put yourself in front of a car that can move forward. The idea that you can hold your gun out and that that car -- that somehow that car is not going to move is bad practice. The rules that DHS goes by is not to shoot at a moving vehicle because it's inherently dangerous and almost always ineffective. So, the idea that an officer placed himself in front of the car, the car moved forward. Again, we can't put ourselves in his mind, but it appears that he thought, you know --

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Guys, I'm going to jump in really --

MILLER: Go ahead.

BOLDUAN: I'm going to jump in really quick. We're looking at live pictures right now from Ryan Young's camera, our correspondent on the ground, of what looks like ICE officers and agents confronting the protesters there.

Ryan, can you hear me? It's Kate.

YOUNG: Hey, guys. So, this has really taken a turn here. They were blocking the front of this facility. And now these agents have responded by trying to walk in their own cars. And they are starting to use some pepper or tear gas agents to move parts of the crowd. You can hear them saying "shame." And so, this has really just all taken place in the last three minutes or so. So, this has taken definitely an escalation.

This gate is one of the gates they were trying to block to stop Border Patrol and ICE agents from getting inside. And then at some point there was a notice to give a clearing. And when that clearing happened, these agents showed up and you see them armed. And that is a less than lethal weapon here that they're shooting PepperBalls toward the crowd. They've cleared a certain section, but now as you see them, they're sort of retreating back, back toward their main gate here. But this has definitely taken more of an offensive stance from the Border Patrol agents that's happening right in front of us.

BOLDUAN: Ryan, talk to me -- remind everyone what this facility is. You've been there since -- since the early morning and crowds were gathering. And last time we, you know, we were talking, these people were gathering, and they were just emotional and sad about -- I mean people were very emotional with you about what they are going through and experiencing this, just what they saw yesterday

YOUNG: So, we've talked to people -- yes, we've talked to people from all over Minnesota who told us they were very angry about what was going on, and they decided to come here to voice their anger. This protest started at 7:00 local time. I'm sorry for the cowbell that's in my ear here. But at the same time, what they wanted to do was they wanted to cross the street so that they could block ICE agents from getting into work.

Now, you see the Border Patrol responded once these people surrounded the gates. There's three gates at this federal facility.

[09:10:03]

We're about four or five minutes from the airport. And when they decided to do that, they decided to make sure that they made it hard for these agents to get into the facility to start their day.

We saw several times agents driving through the crowd, and they were trying to make sure that no one would get hurt in that situation. And then, at some point, they were able to block gate four, and that's when this SRT unit decided to come out with their PepperBall guns. They fired several shots of the PepperBalls into the crowd. You can still smell it in the air. It's very hard to talk sometimes when you smell that smell. They took that aggressive stance. But they didn't detain anybody so far. They just used it to really settle that crowd down.

Now, you see these folks right here. They are wearing the vests. They are trying to keep the crowd separated from these Border Patrol agents. And I will tell you, even since we've been here, now they're taking a less than aggressive stance on this side. So, this has all unfolded even since our live shot where we were talking to people who were obviously angry and upset, but at the same time they hadn't crossed any lines. It seems like the line that was crossed was the idea of blocking the agents from getting inside this federal facility. BOLDUAN: Yes. Ryan is on the ground describing this really perfectly

as it is truly unfolding as we speak. As you know, Ryan, as you have covered many a protest, things can flare up really quickly. At the moment looking like they -- it has calmed back down.

YOUNG: So quickly.

BOLDUAN: Let's keep these pictures up right now because we have joining us right now is the Democratic lieutenant governor of Minnesota, Peggy Flanagan.

Much to discuss, Lieutenant Governor. Thank you for joining me.

Just your reaction to what we know is -- what we can see is, one, emotion flaring up and another confrontation between protesters and federal law enforcement officers in Saint Paul.

LT. GOV. PEGGY FLANAGAN (D), MINNESOTA: So, first of all, I just want to express deep condolences to Renee Good's family. As you can see, there are so many folks in Minnesota, and I know across the country, who are just deeply troubled, angry, by what happened. And I think you can feel the emotion that's coming from folks in Minnesota. Renee Good should be alive. And it is so clear to me that the presence of thousands of ICE agents is making everyone in our community less safe. And the contradictory messages coming out of Donald Trump and (INAUDIBLE) all have (INAUDIBLE) is -- it's disgusting, frankly.

BOLDUAN: Yes. Yes. And we're going to continue to work through -- control room, you might want to just bring down the volume from the live picture real quick so we can -- I can hear the lieutenant governor. That's a little bit better.

Lieutenant Governor, I do -- with regard to what we have seen, what we've seen in -- from multiple angles in the videos from the shooting and killing yesterday, I want to also try to -- try to clear something up about it.

A law enforcement source has told CNN that ICE officers are not required to wear body-worn cameras while conducting operations in Minneapolis, but they -- that doesn't mean they weren't wearing them. Just not required to. And it's not clear whether the officer who shot Renee Good was wearing one. Do you know the answer to that?

FLANAGAN: I don't know the answer to that. But what I can tell you is that, you know, I believe body-worn cameras make everyone more safe. And it sure would be helpful, you know, to have those images. You know, but what we've seen from multiple angles, right, I think is contradictory to the picture, frankly, that Donald Trump is trying to paint, you know, somehow insulting the memory of this mother of a six- year-old. You know, and let's be clear, right. What we have seen in our community is ICE agents detaining American citizens, throwing people into vans, arresting innocent bystanders. And yesterday literally using chemical agents on the (INAUDIBLE) with children present. I mean this is reckless and safety has nothing to do with this kind of response from ICE. And as you can see, Minnesotans feel incredibly emotional about it as

-- as they should. They're terrorizing our communities. And, you know, we all deserve better.

BOLDUAN: I'm going to just remind everyone, as I'm continue this conversation with the lieutenant governor of Minnesota, you're looking at live pictures from our reporters on the ground in Saint Paul. Ryan Young, you can see him in the camera image right there.

[09:15:01]

But this is a confrontation that seems to be flaring up once again of federal law enforcement officers confronting with protesters who had been outside a facility blocking, Ryan Young reports, in some point blocking the movement of cars.

Let me -- Lieutenant Governor, if you could --

YOUNG: PepperBalls.

BOLDUAN: Hang on with me just one second. I want to check in with Ryan Young.

Ryan, what's he latest?

YOUNG: So, they identified the -- somebody they wanted in this crowd. They aggressively went after them. They pushed their way in. Now they're shooting PepperBalls toward the crowd to keep everyone back. We don't know why they decided to go after this gentleman. There was a bunch of people standing still. And then, all of a sudden, they ran in and tried to grab him.

This created a situation, as we move a little closer here, where they're putting the handcuffs on this guy right here. Now, this guy is trying to get involved, so they're going to take him down as we speak.

The PepperBall spray is very strong. They use that to make sure that the crowd stays back.

So, one of the problems that we see is that some of the protesters are standing behind the media members. You see how upset people are getting. And you see how angry folks are.

This crowd is on the edge when it comes to the tactics that are being used. We are not sure why they decided to identify this man as someone they needed to take into custody. But, obviously, this is a second person that they have gone after into this crowd.

There were a lot of women who got pushed down to the ground, which made more of the men in the crowd get upset and pushed back. We saw a physical confrontation where a man put two hands and shoved one of the agents in the chest. That made the agents respond with more force. And as you can hear the crowd now saying, "shame." But at least they've stopped shooting PepperBalls at this point, which really -- oh, and they're taking this man away right now. So, as you see this, they've actually asked for the -- oh, now they're

pushing again. This is really -- oh, they're firing more PepperBalls. So, as you see that smoke coming back our direction -- I got you, Effie (ph). I have my arm around our photographer here because this crowd is shifting on this ice. There's a lot of pushing and shoving, and people are very angry. We have some people opening their jackets and saying, shoot me here, shoot me here. And that -- now they're pulling back the man they arrested in this direction over here, falling back to the gate that we talked about before.

They have bear spray as well that they're using. Look at this right here. They're going after someone else. So, you can feel the anger of this crowd. People want to hit these agents. Some people started throwing snowballs at them. This agent, obviously, fell and had to be retrieved by his fellow agents as they pulled him back.

So, this is all unfolding as the anger continues here.

BOLDUAN: Ryan, just -- you're so seasoned at this, but keeping you in your -- you and the entire team there safe and in the right amount of distance is important, as you know. You're going to -- we're going to keep Ryan's picture up. Ryan's going to continue to follow this.

Lieutenant Governor, I've got you just to get your reaction to this, because this is reminding me of what the governor, Tim Walz, imploring Minnesotans yesterday to, as he said, don't take the bait is what the governor had said yesterday to imploring protesters to protest peacefully, protest, but keeping it peaceful.

At the same time, we saw the alert that Minneapolis Public Schools have canceled classes for the rest of the week due to safety concerns related to the fatal shooting. What is your message and are you truly concerned about the safety of school students right now in Minneapolis?

FLANAGAN: So, Donald Trump wants chaos, and we should not give it to him. We cannot give it to him. Nonviolent resistance is exactly the way to respond. Peaceful protest. And Minnesotans know how to do that.

I know that this morning there are a lot of faith leaders who are on the ground in deep lament, calling for justice and doing so peacefully. And that should be how we respond.

But I want to be clear that these schools are being closed, you know, in Minneapolis out of incredible, you know, precaution and concern for the safety of students. Because yesterday, at Roosevelt High School, right, there are images that are coming out of ICE agents being on property using chemical agents with students present. That's outrageous.

And again, I come back to the presence of ICE agents making everyone less safe.

[09:20:03]

Now, someone has been -- now Renee Good has lost her life, has been killed by an ICE agent. So, what you are hearing from Minnesotans, and I will say this myself loud and clear, ICE, it is time to get out of Minnesota and to go home. You are making all of us less safe and putting us in danger.

BOLDUAN: Roosevelt High School is a high school in Minneapolis, but this really is the first time I'm hearing a lot -- more detail about what had been rumored to have taken place on school property yesterday. We do need to learn more about that.

Lieutenant Governor, thank you very much for your time.

Going to keep these live pictures up right now of what's happening in Saint Paul.

Send it over to John and Sara.

SIDNER: And we have John Miller still with us.

You've been watching this whole thing. Before these agents -- and most of them have Border Patrol on their -- on their jackets -- showed up, there were people crying. It was quite a -- kind of quiet. Why send the agents out when you have a growing number of people out there?

MILLER: So, great question. And the clues for this were yesterday when the secretary of Homeland Security was asked, are we going to maybe curtail or draw back some of the ICE operations in Minneapolis given the shooting and the tensions around it? And she said, no, we have agents out there right now. We're going to continue our operations.

Now, Sara, it's important to understand the math here. Minneapolis, the last time I checked, had about 700 police officers. There's 2,000 ICE agents on the ground in the biggest operation they have ever launched according to the federal government in that city. Tensions, obviously, shot up overnight around this shooting and remain tense today. The idea that there are literally more federal agents out in the street, continuing operations, that any one of which could go sideways in some manner that could add to these tensions, along with the idea that those operations are being managed partly out of this building.

So, what we're seeing today is, the Border Patrol, who is really the only element among ICE and CBP that has crowd control training, usually gets the front line on these facilities where they have to find where their vehicles are going to be coming in and out of, some of those vehicles with prisoners, some of those vehicles with agents, these caravans, and they -- and we saw this a moment ago, which is what started all of the (INAUDIBLE) attempts on the ground here. When the vehicles come in, the crowd tries to block the gate. The agents move forward. They unleash their PepperBall sprays, pepper spray, cayenne spray, and the pushing and shoving starts until they get the vehicles in. Then they draw back.

In this case, we saw those tensions spill over. We saw an individual who was being arrested. We don't know why. Did he throw a snowball? Did they want him for something else? Then we saw the process of what we call d-arresting, people trying to pull that person away, which resulted in, it appeared, one of them being arrested as well. So, we can predict, if these operations are to continue on this scale, that these vehicles will continue to come and go from facilities like this, that these confrontations will likely continue throughout the day, and that tensions may continue to rise.

BERMAN: So, it's 8:22 a.m. Central Time there. It's early. It is early. So, this just began. And as Sara said, it began as a very peaceful protest there with people crying and whatnot over what happened yesterday. Then we saw the tension.

Now, John, what exactly is it we're looking at? Is this the period where you say that the officers went in and now they've drawn back a little bit?

MILLER: Well, it looks like the lines have moved a little bit since that. But, you know, their main function is to be the -- and we see a car moving here -- be the force at that gate that allows their vehicles to get in and out. And we've seen this play out. We saw a lot of this in Chicago. And we first saw this in L.A. when they called in the National Guard.

And, you know, you have the governor, who said yesterday his National Guard is on standby to come in if they're needed. But he reminded people, that's Minnesota's National Guard, who are, you know, working for the people.

We also saw, in prior incidents, where, in Los Angeles in particular, where the White House and the Pentagon sent in National Guard from other states, in one case the Marines, to guard these federal buildings and facilitate the passage of these operations.

Why are we having a demonstration at 7:00 in the morning that's running through 8:30, when those things usually occur later in the day? The protesters wanted to be at this facility because they know the vehicles launch for their operations in the morning and return with those arrests. And they wanted to, as a form of protest, try to block those or interfere with those.

[09:25:03]

And now we're seeing the clash that comes from that.

SIDNER: You've heard the mayor saying, and I'm quoting here, that he wants ICE to get the hell out of Minneapolis. And you heard the lieutenant governor there saying that ICE needs to leave. That they are more of a danger than they are of a help to people.

When you see what is happening this early in the morning outside this facility, how do you see this sort of culminating? How will this end? Because if they're going to continue to do ICE operations and big ones all over the place in Minneapolis, isn't this going to end badly again?

MILLER: It certainly has the potential to accelerate this kind of encounter and these kinds of clashes. And what you will see is two different things if this continues to escalate. One, the federal government will send in more resources. Don't be surprised if we see National Guards or Marines or Guard deployed from other states, federalized by the president if this continues. But also do not be surprised, as we learned from George Floyd, as we learned from Ferguson, that protesters and activists from other cities will flood into Minneapolis to say, this has become the battleground of this issue.

BERMAN: Yes, I was going to say, one of the interesting things here, this protest at this facility, it's not like there were mobs and mobs of people. This was a couple hundred people maybe there who had gone there specifically to be outside this specific facility. I have to imagine now this is being televised all over the Minneapolis-Saint Paul, over the twin cities, and people are watching this and thinking, hey, if you were inclined to do so, will this gather even more protesters? Will this now become a locus for people who want to come join this? And in that case, could this type of enforcement operation backfire?

MILLER: I mean, it could. One side could escalate. As we've talked about a minute ago, the other side could escalate. I mean in terms of numbers and -- but also in terms of tactics.

And when you think about the position it puts Minneapolis, the city, in --

SIDNER: Yes.

MILLER: We don't have to go over the history of George Floyd or the loss of relations between the city and law enforcement and the community, that the five years it took to rebuild those, to get tensions down to a place where the police had dialog across the community. Brian O'Hara the police chief, talks about all the work that's gone into that. You will note that the federal agents, their body armor says "police" on the back of it. I mean, technically, they're not police. They're law enforcement. And they're federal agents. But they wear that. That is one of the things that paints with that broad brush among protesters who say, I don't care if you're the Minneapolis police or these green police, we're against the police.

So, one of the things that the city is concerned -- you really got this from the mayor yesterday in his comments, was, you know, we don't want to be dragged backwards by these operations, which are targeted politically, according to him, according to others, targeted only at Democratic cities and so on. So, this is a thing where, what do you not see here? You don't see Minneapolis Police. They are trying to keep their distance from these ICE operations to show, we don't do immigration enforcement. We don't do purely civil immigration matters. But you're going to likely see them at some point, as we did yesterday, because after things get out of control, who is the neutral party who are -- who is going to separate, you know, the ICE officers from the crowds and so on?

Difficult call for them. We saw this happen in Los Angeles. And, you know, we saw them become really enmeshed with the -- with the operations against the protesters.

BERMAN: John, standby, if you will, for just a minute here.

BERMAN: Joining us is Democratic senator from Wisconsin, Tammy Baldwin.

Senator Baldwin, thanks so much for being with us.

And we're going to keep some of these pictures up while we speak with you.

I don't know if you've had a chance to see what's happening in Saint Paul, just outside Minneapolis, at this federal facility this morning. But your reaction?

SEN. TAMMY BALDWIN (D-WI): Well, first of all, with regard to the tragedy yesterday, it is a tragedy. And I was absolutely taken aback by the social media posts by Donald Trump, by this administration, prejudging and trying to create a narrative before an investigation has even happened.

Look, when you put in thousands of masked, armed agents into residential neighborhoods across any city in America, tensions clearly rise. And I call on everybody to de-escalate.

[09:29:58]

Please continue to exercise your First Amendment rights and protest, but do so peaceably, because we do not need to give this president an excuse