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Law Enforcement Agents Clash with Protesters in Minnesota; Medaria Arradondo is Interviewed about the Clashes in Minnesota; Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) is Interviewed about Clashes in Minnesota. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired January 08, 2026 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00]

SEN. TAMMY BALDWIN (D-WI): Exercise your First Amendment rights and protest, but do so peaceably, because we do not need to give this president an excuse to declare some sort of state of emergency, to double down on the type of actions that he's taken already.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: You talked about what's being said by administration officials on social media.

BALDWIN: Yes.

BERMAN: The vice president of the United States, J.D. Vance, has been basically live tweeting all morning his views on the shooting yesterday. One of the things he said, he said, "a tragedy, absolutely, but a tragedy that falls on this woman," he means the woman who was killed, "and all of the radicals who teach people that immigration is the one type of law that rioters are allowed to interfere with."

I want to get your reaction to what the vice president said.

BALDWIN: It's just -- yes, it's beneath the dignity of the office that he holds to be creating this narrative, to be prejudging.

Look, this is -- you know, clearly, Donald Trump ran on a platform of getting rid of folks who were hardened criminals, who were here without documentation, here illegally. But when you talk about putting thousands of masked, armed federal agents into residential neighborhoods, we are talking about something entirely different. And this cannot be the America that we have moving forward.

And so it is deeply disturbing to see these images. And I call for de- escalation. But the continued exercise of First Amendment rights to peaceably speak out against what's happening across the United States.

BERMAN: How do you do that? I mean how do you thread that needle? Because as we're watching right now, we have a very tense situation here going on. How do you de-escalate?

BALDWIN: Well, I think we've seen, in some cities, an example of that where it's, you know, there's communication. It's very clear that people are out to speak their piece and to talk about the -- how unwelcome armed agents, federal agents are and National Guard are in our communities, in our neighborhoods, at our schools, at our places of worship. But to do so in a way that does not create a violent exchange.

BERMAN: We talk about de-escalating. You've also heard, I think, some of the language from the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, who, you know, he said, get the f out of Minneapolis. How helpful is that kind of language here?

BALDWIN: Look, I think that the mayor is being clear about the fact that the presence of, not only ICE but U.S. Border Patrol agents who are masked and armed, roaming neighborhoods, schools, is a disruptive force in the community. And, you know, whatever colorful language, frankly, it has been sadly matched by the president and vice president and others in the administration. And it needs to be de-escalated.

But it is very clear that -- that this sort of law enforcement presence, armed, masked agents roaming American cities, is not constructive and it is not helping achieve the ends of this administration or communities.

BERMAN: Senator Baldwin, stand by for a moment, if you will, because we continue to watch what's going on there at this facility. We see someone down on the ground now. But moments ago we saw -- we saw some kind of smoke. I don't know if it was gas there.

Our Ryan Young is still there, I believe.

Ryan, can you give us a sense of what's going on?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Yes. They definitely used gas, John. And I didn't have this -- us being gassed three times before the day got started here. But that's what they used. They deployed the agent in the corner where that American flag is, and they allowed it to breeze back this way to kind of break up the crowd.

One of the things that we should talk about, and I would love for John Miller to talk about this is, what we're seeing is a different level of maybe training per agent. There's some agents here who are trying to use de-escalation, and they're talking with the protesters and trying to walk them through it. Then there are other agents who are literally having conversations where they're antagonizing the protesters, telling them to bring it if they want to bring it.

[09:35:02]

And they're -- they're using their body to physically push people down to the ground. We've watched that in several different occasions that happened right here on the line.

The last time you joined us, we were across the street there. They have now pushed us off that federal property, and they've created this line here.

The other thing that we've noticed is some of these skirmishes. It shows a level of control when it comes to the equipment. It doesn't seem to really match what they should be doing. We've seen several of the Border Patrol agents dropping parts of their equipment. There are Border Patrol agents here with body cameras on. Some of those have fallen to the ground. We've seen some of their agents in terms of pepper spray fall to the ground. But these are all armed with the pepper spray, lethal agents, and they've been deploying them.

Let's walk a little closer to the line here and I'll walk you back this direction.

One of the things that we've noticed is, it seems like in the last half hour or so, more agents have arrived. And not only agents from Border Patrol, but it seems like some Homeland Security special response teams have arrived here as well.

I'm just going to walk you to the front of the line here and show you this. So, this, for instance, this gentleman right here has been challenging a lot of the agents and getting in their faces nonstop. He's been doing a lot of the talking back and forth.

You see, as we look down this line here, that you can see the faces of people. So, this has been very interesting to watch as people have been screaming that they are murderers. And now every single gate around this federal facility has been clear of the protesters. They made sure to set this up. I would count no less than 50 officers, all in the special fatigues here. You can see some of these agents are Border Patrol. The agents down there seem to be like from Homeland Security. There could be some of the ICE agents here as well.

But this has been very interesting to watch as each sort of line here has a different level of expertise when it comes to dealing with some of these protesters. You have to realize when you're on this line people are going to yell at you. Some of them have been fine with it.

Now, when anybody starts to grab a snowball, and it looks like they're getting ready to throw it, they've been responding very quickly and going into that crowd to grab that person who might get ready to throw a snowball. But in the last few minutes or so, this is the level in which we're at. You can see the agent here. It looks like a paintball gun. That's where the PepperBalls are in that, and they're able to disperse that very quickly. A lot of times they've been using that to shoot toward the ground that way they can disperse the agent to the crowd.

So, that's where we are at this point.

John.

BERMAN: Ryan, great work there. I know you did not have getting gassed three times before breakfast on your bingo card this morning.

Stay safe. You and your team stay safe. Keep us posted as to what you're seeing.

Also want to thank Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin, who was with us before, for joining us this morning as well. Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: And let's now bring in -- we have the former police chief of Minneapolis, Medaria Arradondo, who knows this community as well as anyone and has seen how things can completely ratchet out of control because you were the police chief at the time that George Floyd was killed by one of your officers at the time.

Can you give us some sense -- we just heard from our reporter Ryan Young, I know you've been watching these pictures -- of the different types of actions by police. He said some of them are trying to de- escalate. They're trying to talk to the protesters, talk them down, if you will. And others are reacting with force.

What do you see here that is going to calm this scenario down? Or do you think things are just going to fly out of control?

MEDARIA ARRADONDO, FORMER MINNEAPOLIS POLICE CHIEF: Yes. Good morning, John, Sara, and my good friend John Miller.

Yes, so, as was mentioned earlier by John Miller, you know, the facility is the strategic place. That is where they -- these federal agents need to secure. That is their first and primary duty is to secure and keep it safe.

Obviously, as Ryan on the ground said, there's certain gates or entry and exit ways that they need to also maintain security there. They're also going to sort of, you know, they want to make sure that they have more of their agents out there than the protesters as a show of, you know, that, you know, they've got the situation under control. They don't want it, hopefully, to get out of control. And so, they're going to be at critical points, critical checkpoints, entry, exit points.

Now, they will also determine, you know, many of these protests -- and we certainly saw this here in Minneapolis five years ago -- certain places are symbolic. Certain locations are symbolic. And so, this is one of those facilities. This is one of those places.

I know there's also protests going on at some of our federal buildings, courthouses here in Minnesota later today as well. But they're going to send enough personnel, federal agents, to that location to sort of get it and make sure that it's under control.

[09:40:09]

Now, as was also mentioned too, you know, for local police, de- escalation is the primary principle when you have these large mass protests. If some of those agents are not fully trained in that, if they're not doing that, you're hoping to have a supervisor on those skirmishes line to make sure that if an agent is sort of going below what they should be in terms of their professionalism, you pull them out of that line, you get some fresh people back in there. And that's the other thing. The longer these things are protracted, it can be problematic for not only the agents themselves but, obviously, to those folks who are out there protesting. SIDNER: Chief, I am curious when you consider what you're seeing now,

whether you think that the local police will get drawn into this, will be deployed, and what that will mean, because we saw what happened yesterday when local police were out at the area where Renee Nicole Good had been shot and killed by that ICE agent, and they were having things like snowballs thrown at them, people not seeing any difference between the local police and the agents from the federal agencies that were out there.

ARRADONDO: Yes, Sara. So, in the example of Minneapolis, you know, Minneapolis has had a separation ordinance, you know, making sure that their officers do not get involved in immigration-related matters. So, as my good friend John Miller said earlier, Chief Brian O'Hhara, of the Minneapolis Police Department, he's trying to make sure that that is what their community sees. That their officers are not getting involved in specific immigration or ICE-related sorts of operations.

That being said, what we've seen in Minneapolis, and to your question about this facility in Saint Paul, if those federal agents, for some reason, need local police assistance, then they're drawn into it. Those local police agencies are drawn into it. They'll respond. And that is where the tension can be with those local police departments. They want to be seen as neutral. But if they get called to help these federal agents, like they did in Minneapolis yesterday, the community can see them as also being a part of what they consider the problem.

SIDNER: Yes, the mayor, the governor, the lieutenant governor all asking for ICE to leave in no uncertain terms. So, we'll see how the local police are deployed or not.

Stick with us, please, Chief. We are going to go to a break. We've got you. We've got Ryan Young, who is on the scene showing these really tense pictures, and John Miller still with us. We'll return in just a second with more.

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[09:47:28]

BOLDUAN: All right, we're going to take you back to live pictures you see there on the right side of your screen. This is Saint Paul. We've been watching since -- well, it's -- this started at 8:00 this morning, but it has flared up in a very big way between protesters and federal law enforcement agents outside of an ICE facility. Right now, as you can see, things seem -- things seem calm.

But we have Ryan Young, who has been on the ground, who has been, as he said, he has now facing chemical agents and PepperBalls three times already this morning in trying to cover these protests.

As we keep an eye on these live pictures that are playing out, let's bring in Priscilla Alvarez once more, as you have been talking to your sources all morning. This, as you can see, the outrage boiling over once again over the ICE agent shooting and killing that 37-year-old woman, Renee Good, yesterday. PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Kate, remember that there

has been a heightened presence of federal agents even before the shooting of this woman. They had deployed around 2,000 to the state earlier this week. And so, what you see there, some of the folks you're seeing are U.S. Border Patrol. They were among the federal agents who were deployed to Minnesota as they were launching this massive immigration operation.

Now, let me tell you a little bit about who these Border Patrol agents are. They appear to be a mix, from the images I'm seeing here, of the agents -- agency's special response team and BORTAC. These are agents that are generally trained in crowd control and crowd dispersion and tactics to do -- to, for example, protect property, which appears to be what they're doing here. Again, I'm not on scene, but from what I'm seeing in these images, it appears that there's a perimeter around this building.

Pepper spray and tear gas canisters are among the tools that they may use, according to the people I've been speaking with, as they are trying to control the crowd if it gets to that point. And it has gotten to that point, as you just mentioned.

Now, if they look familiar, that is because over the last year we have seen similar clashes with these teams between federal agents and protesters. But they've also responded to other incidents of civil unrest. Take, for example, Portland in 2020. Similar Border Patrol teams who were on the ground in that instance when there was that significant clash between the federal agents and protesters.

So, again, there are a number of federal agencies on the ground in Minnesota.

[09:50:04]

That was the case a few days ago. It's certainly the case now. That includes, for example, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, of course it was an ICE officer involved in that shooting, but also other Department of Homeland Security agencies like U.S. Border Patrol, which within U.S. Border Patrol has these special teams, these special response teams, and what they call BORTAC to serve as the crowd control and crowd dispersion as they appear to be there, providing this perimeter around this building, as they have done again in other incidents, particularly like the civil unrest in Portland, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. Priscilla, thank you so much. Your -- your knowledge on this is so important as we're covering this all developing an unfolding right before our eyes. I really appreciate it. Priscilla is going to continue working her sources on this and keeping an eye on Minneapolis and Saint Paul.

Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, and just to go back to those pictures right now, what you are seeing are protesters face to face with federal agents outside of a federal facility. Although the crowd has gotten a bit smaller since what -- we have been seeing earlier this morning.

Joining us now is California Congressman Eric Swalwell.

I know that you have been privy to these images. And I just am curious, you know, when you are looking at these images, you know that DHS Secretary Noem has said that ICE is going to continue its work there. It's going to continue its operations in the area. What is your message as you watch these pictures where there is serious tensions rising?

REP. ERIC SWALWELL (D-CA): We have to stop this. No one asked for this. And, of course, this is where it was always going to end up. When you put masked thugs unidentified into our communities, of course horrible things are going to happen. And now people feel like you're probably lucky if all that happens is you're thrown into a van that's unidentified, or you're grabbed by your hair and dragged through the streets.

But this started with ICE chasing people through the fields where they worked, and then they deported a U.S. citizen four-year-old (ph) and battling stage four cancer. And then they started pulling people out of their homes. And today we have found ICE to have shot a mom in the face three times.

Here's what we can do, because we're not helpless. And people may feel helpless. We're not helpless. And tell your leaders, they're not helpless. We can strip them of their immunity. And I'm working on doing that in Congress. We can make sure that when we seek to fund them, we don't fund masks and we don't fund them being unidentified.

We also can make sure that local prosecutors and attorneys general across the country, particularly in blue states, use your law enforcement authorities. If they're going to falsely imprison people, kidnap people, assault people, commit battery, and now murder, prosecute them. They only understand one language. It's either us and the most vulnerable in our communities on our heels, or them on their heels. That's the only way to approach this is to be on offense.

SIDNER: Look, after seeing the videos from Minneapolis, you posted on X, "what happened in Minneapolis wasn't law enforcement, it was murder. Prosecute them. Stripped their immunity," as you have just mentioned again. And then you said, get them the hell out of our communities.

With multiple videos out now, and as a former prosecutor, do you have any concerns this morning about jumping to that conclusion in the case where we saw an officer fire upon a citizen?

SWALWELL: Yes. My concern right now is for good cops who are going to be targeted because of this. And I'm related to some of those good cops. I worked with some of those good cops. And what happens when you have a bad cop act in this way is good cops get targeted. And local law enforcement, police chiefs across California, they're telling me that ICE is giving their officers a bad name. And some people can't distinguish between ICE and local cops, and they may go out and try and lash out against a local cop who has nothing to do with this. But, Sara, you and I both come from the bay area. You've covered cases

in the bay area. I will always defend a police officer with their back against the wall and a vehicle driving against them, firing into that car to save their life. That's not what happened here. This officer, on his own feet, moved out of the way, fired into the car, saw her hands turning the wheel as he was looking into the car. There was no justification for this. There has to be immediate accountability otherwise every cop is going to be tarnished with this officer's actions.

SIDNER: The administration is saying the complete opposite. Secretary Noem saying that the officer did what he was trained to do and he took actions to defend himself.

Do you have any confidence that there will be a proper investigation into the actions of this officer and the deadly shooting?

SWALWELL: Zero confidence that the administration will do that. But that's why attorneys general across the country, in Minnesota, the Hennepin County District Attorneys Office, max out your law enforcement authorities. Don't let them get away with this.

And as I look at what we can do across the country, I'm proposing that governors should revoke drivers licenses from ICE agents who roam communities in a masked way, unidentified. You've got a lot of powers.

[09:55:01]

Use those powers to defend the most vulnerable people in your communities.

SIDNER: Are you concerned about the training and recruiting? In two prior shootings that we've seen, there has been a huge discrepancy between what agents said happened and what video later showed happened.

SWALWELL: Yes. Yes. And you're referring to a case where it was ultimately dismissed by DHS because the agent had lied. But look at who Donald Trump is seeking to recruit. He's not seeking to recruit the best of us. He wants the people that he just let out of jail for January 6th. Those are the type of people he would want to enlist in ICE.

And again, as a son of a cop, someone from a law enforcement family, it pains me to see that they are reducing how people value law enforcement in our community by holding up the actions of that officer. That officer's actions do not reflect the cops I know. All you're doing is putting a target on good cops' backs by holding up that officer.

SIDNER: Representative Swalwell, there is a tense situation that we are continuing to watch there in Saint Paul, as well as Minneapolis, after an ICE officer shot and killed a mother of three who was in her car. The accusation is that she ended up hitting him and he fired upon her. We will have more on this. But this is a situation right now in Saint Paul with protesters facing off against agents, federal agents. Thank you.

BERMAN: Yes, and these pictures obviously come from a federal facility, where there have been protests going on for the last couple of hours. Early this morning we saw several people taken away. We've seen gas fired. Our reporter, Ryan Young, is right in the middle of it. Right -- much more right after a quick break.

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