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Protests Erupt After Federal Agent Shoots Man in Minneapolis; Trump Says, Iran Not Planning Executions, Military Actions Still on Table; Trial Underway for Virginia Father Accused of Conspiring With Au Pair to Kill His Wife, Another Man. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired January 15, 2026 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking overnight, clashes erupt in Minnesota after a federal agent shoots a man in the leg. We've got the very latest on this developing situation.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: And we also have a splash down. The NASA crew safely returned to Earth early this morning. Now, the question is, what is the medical issue with one of the crew that brought them home a full month early?

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: And an emu on the lam. Sheriff's deputies, and guess where, yes, Florida, sent a wild goose chase to capture a rogue big bird. They can run, but they can't fly. Sorry for the puns.

I'm Sara Sidner with John Berman and Kate Bolduan. This is CNN New Central.

BERMAN: All right. Breaking overnight, chaos in Minneapolis, new chaos after this new shooting involving a federal agent amid the Trump administration's immigration down.

Again, that was overnight. Federal agents deployed tear gas and threw flash bangs as these protests erupted. Homeland Security says that officer was assaulted by a Venezuelan national during a targeted traffic stop, and then they shot the man in the leg while the officer was ambushed by two other people with a shovel and a broom handle. Officials say the wounded man was taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

As you can see, there are some protesters through fireworks as they clash with federal officers. Overnight, the mayor of Minneapolis called for calm.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR JACOB FREY (D-MINNEAPOLIS, MN): I've seen conduct from ice that is disgusting and is intolerable for anyone that is taking the bait tonight, stop. That is not helpful. Go home. We cannot counter Donald Trump's chaos with our own brand of chaos.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BERMAN: All right. CNN's Whitney Wild and her team were in the middle of this all night long there with us this morning. Whitney, give us a sense of what's happening now.

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, now, as far as we know, the scene is calm. The scene began to disperse pretty quickly after law enforcement left, John. But up until that point, it was quite chaotic. What we saw were at least two different locations where law enforcement was stationed and at one location, which we believe is closer to law enforcement vehicles up the street.

That is where law enforcement was throwing these tear gas canisters and flash bangs right into the middle of the crowd. And at one point our team was separated because we were surrounded by tear gas canisters that were exploding right at the feet of our photographer, right at my feet, the feet of our producer, Meridith Edwards, and so the scene became quite chaotic.

And, John, there's so much tear gas in the air that it just hung in the air like a low cloud for several minutes afterward, at least an hour, even at a location that was a block away. At the second location, which is closer to where the shooting was, we saw multiple federal agents holding the line behind a line of police tape as protestors screamed at them, made clear they really hate what they're seeing is happening to their city. They are blaming directly the ICE officers and Customs and Border Patrol agents that are here in Minneapolis for that. They made their voices undeniably heard right to the agents' faces. Here's more from a woman I spoke with right on that scene.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: From my house, like in where I live in my apartment, they come in without warrants, without official anything. They just come in and barge into people's houses, gunned, armed up with no one being spoke to or anything, masked up. This is kidnapping and everything above. That is not okay.

I am very scared. I am worried that I'm not even able to go to school and feel safe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILD: John, she echoed what so many people on the ground were feeling who came out at 10:00 at night in the cold to, again, make their voices heard and try to do what they could do to make an impact, even as an individual, even in that moment.

Again, law enforcement pulled out of there, I'd say, around 10:30 local time, maybe 10:45.

[07:05:01]

What we saw were -- it was mostly federal agents on the scene. We did see the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, their crime scene vehicle, which is basically a mobile command center. They used to process high profile crime scenes that require a lot of evidence review and collection.

And it's a notable that BCA was there, John, because BCA is not involved in the Renee Goode shooting review, and that was a point of contention between federal officials here and local law enforcement who wanted BCA to be a part of that investigation, and then they were eventually boxed out of it. So, it was notable to see BCA on that scene.

Toward the end of the night, John, after federal law enforcement had left, we got a look at two vehicles that appeared to be law enforcement vehicles that had just been ransacked. The windows smashed and debris everywhere, clothing everywhere, boots, paperwork, what looked to be zip ties spread all around the vehicles. And then further, there was quite a bit of graffiti on the side. John?

BERMAN: Yes, seeing some of those pictures here now, I think, look some very tense moments overnight.

Whitney Wild was there with us again this morning. Whitney, thank you to you and your team for all your reporting on this. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. Joining us right now to talk more about this is Chris Swecker, the former assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Investigative Division. It's good to see you again, Chris.

We heard a little bit from the Minneapolis mayor, Jacob Frey, there about morning, calling the situation in the city just not sustainable as it's turned even more chaotic after this second shooting. Let me play a little bit more of what the mayor said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FREY: This is not sustainable. This is an impossible situation that our city is presently being put in. And at the same time, we are trying to find a way forward to keep people safe, to protect our neighbors, to maintain order.

I've seen conduct from ICE that is disgusting and is intolerable.

And for anyone that is taking the bait tonight, stop.

We cannot counter Donald Trump's chaos with our own brand of chaos.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: To find a way forward, the mayor says. I mean, what does that look like, Chris?

CHRIS SWECKER, FORMER FBI ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIVE DIVISION: Well, he is headed in the right direction, but he is a little bit like an arsonist trying to put out a fire that he started with a squirt gun. I mean, what leaders need to step up on both sides. Law enforcement is caught in the middle. ICE is caught in the middle. They don't get to decide whether they're going to go out and make arrests or go out on the street that particular day. They have orders to do so. So, what the -- all the entire leadership, federal and state and local, need to say, hey let's slow this roll a little bit. The officers need to be a little bit more deliberate. But people need to stay out of their way, not impede their operations, stay on the sidewalk, exercise their First Amendment rights all they want, but you can't block law enforcement just because you don't like that law being enforced, immigration laws being enforced. Some people don't like drug laws. Some don't like gun laws. Some want to drag race in the street at a hundred miles an hour. But they don't -- you just can't impede law enforcement in enforcing those laws and decide for yourself that I'm going to get in their way, ram their cars, prevent them from doing what they are ordered to do. So, yes, leadership needs to calm things down right now.

BOLDUAN: I mean from the governor and the mayor, while he has, you know, used aggressive -- I don't know if you call it aggressive language or emotional language in the past, they have been calling for things to be calm as things have continued to flare up over and over again between protesters and federal law enforcement agents.

This started in December with the deployment of roughly 100 federal agents from out of state. The operation, as we know, has now swelled to include some 2,000 federal agents and an additional 1,000 that were announced that were to be coming in this week.

And by comparison, the Minneapolis Police Department has around-ish 600-plus officers. How are the local police even going to navigate this?

SWECKER: Yes. I mean, they this is a battle of wills between the local state government and and this administration. With their 600 officers, I mean, they're pressed. They got to do their daily duties, you know, and they're used to working together with the feds on other issues, violent crime, counterterrorism, joint terrorism task forces and that sort of thing. But this immigration issue has become a wedge between state and local law enforcement.

And I think that it is not in the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department's. It's in the hands of their leaders and also leadership at the federal level. And cooler heads need to prevail. They need -- you know, actually the cleanest way for them to do this is to honor the ICE detainers and do -- you know, these arrests don't have to take place out on the street. But that's a political argument now.

[07:10:02]

It doesn't have to be law enforcement is law enforcement.

So, Minneapolis Police Department caught in the middle, they're not making the decisions. They have to do the best they can with trying to enforce the laws, you know, and in other areas. Obviously, they're not going to help with the immigration enforcement operations.

BOLDUAN: Yes. We've definitely heard. And seeing the police chief in Minneapolis really trying to navigate this carefully from his perspective, you've definitely seen, as you said, caught in the middle, seems to be what we've seen is the police chief has tried to navigate this delicately.

Chris, thank you for coming in. Sara?

SIDNER: All right. Ahead, President Trump backing off what appeared to be imminent action against Iran. He now says the killing in Iran is stopping, but there is still the threat of military action.

Also, splash down. This just happened this morning. Four astronauts back on Earth. But what authorities are saying prompted an early end to the mission.

And an end to the endless scroll, YouTube now giving parents new control over how long their kids can watch it, but there is a catch.

Those stories and more ahead.

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[07:15:00]

SIDNER: This morning, President Trump says Iran has called off scheduled executions of the detained protesters, but he's also saying he's not taken U.S. military action off the table after warning Iran against killing protesters in a brutal crackdown.

Now, one U.S. based human rights group estimates that more than 2,400 protesters have already been killed in about two weeks. Amnesty International says the killings are being committed on an unprecedented scale. The group says it has verified footage showing security forces firing directly at unarmed protesters and bystanders from rooftops.

The Iranian foreign minister calls, it's all part of a foreign misinformation campaign.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ABBAS ARAGHCHI, IRANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: They wanted to drag the president of the United States in this conflict. So, they started to increase the number of deaths by killing ordinary people, by killing police officers, by starting a kind of, you know, fighting inside the different cities.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: That is, of course, not what protesters on the ground have been saying.

CNN's Alayna Treene joins us now from the White House. What is the latest that you're learning from the White House? A lot of folks wondering where the president is getting his information as far as have the killing stopped there in Iran.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes. Look, this has been a very interesting couple of days, Sara. I've had extensive conversations with many people in that building behind me about where the president's head is at when it comes to potential intervention in Iran, something, of course, he has been threatening for weeks now since the beginning of this month, really.

And, look, he's been briefed multiple times by top officials on his national security team. Many of the principals, of course, people like Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, the CIA director, John Ratcliffe. And our reporting has been that in many of these meetings, there's been a split on whether to move forward with kinetic action, essentially a potential military strike or an airstrike of some form, or to do a kind of go the route of maybe a cyber attack or sanctions.

And that was exactly kind of the conversation, those options being presented to the president on Tuesday night. But with that, he was also being updated on the number of killings of these protesters on the ground what the scene had looked like on the ground. He was shown videos we've reported inside that Tuesday night meeting.

But one of the things that really troubled the president, we were told, was about the potential of the Iranian government trying to execute protesters. And the president actually publicly commented on that on Tuesday as well. And so that's why yesterday when he came out and said that the executions were off and that the killing had stopped, that had really surprised a lot of people, because up until that point, that was something that had really angered the president, particularly around all of this discussion.

I do want you to listen though to what he told reporters yesterday when asked about this specifically.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: We've been told that the killing in Iran is stopping and it's stopped. It's stopping. And there's no plan for executions or an execution or executions. So, I've been told that a good authority. We will find out about it. I'm sure if it happens, we'll all be very upset.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: So, key question that we have today, Sara, is whether or not this could potentially be enough to stave off of decision from the president as we look ahead to the next couple of days. And I will tell you from my conversations as well, the president had been in recent days closer to wanting to act than he had been. And so this could be potentially adding a new calculation to all of that.

And I do just want to add on the end here, there is another big event, another big foreign policy event happening here at the White House today. The president is going to be welcoming Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado for lunch at the White House. This is going to be the first time the two have met of, course, since the capture of Maduro and the strikes in Caracas, but even the first time, really, that they have spoken in months, we're told. So, a very interesting meeting indeed.

It comes, of course, after Machado had won the Nobel Peace Prize, had said that she was going to potentially honor the president with it, bring it to the White House today. We'll be following all of those developments very closely.

SIDNER: Yes, there is a lot to think about a lot to look at as what's going to happen going forward. A lot of people wondering what action might be taken in Iran, certainly.

Alayna Treene, thank you so much for all your reporting there on all of the different important news events. John?

BERMAN: All right. An SUV plows into an elementary school classroom.

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New reporting on how it happened and how the kids are doing this morning.

And emu on the lam, a slow speed chase ends with an officer placing an emu in handcuffs, which is no small thing, since an emu does not have hands.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Secured. Look at that. I have a full set of cuffs on this emu.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All right. Happening today new testimony in the murder trial, I should say, of Brendan Banfield. The Virginia father pleaded not guilty to murdering two people, including his wife. Prosecutors say Banfield conspired with his former au pair with whom he was having an affair to frame a stranger for his wife's death.

[07:25:00]

The au pair is now testifying against him with the defense trying to paint her as an unreliable witness.

With us now is CNN's Jean Casarez, who's following all of this. And there were some tough cross.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Oh, they tried to discredit her because they have to discredit her because she turned on Brendan Banfield. And they start out by saying, you don't remember dates, you don't remember locations, you don't remember what room in the house you would go with Christine, that's a pediatric nurse, his wife, the laptop, to go on fetlife.com, to talk to these men to see who you wanted to bring to the house. You don't remember anything.

And then they tried to show how she was just all about herself, that she would do anything she had to do to benefit herself. Brendan Banfield's mother paid for her lawyer, paid for her commissary food, she wanted extra food, which is normal, and paid for her telephone privileges to call her family in Brazil, but turned on her completely when she turned on her son. So, that was cut off.

So, then she starts talking to media. And, currently, she's talking to a producer right now, and it's been for quite a while. And the producer, it sounds like from an independent production company, but she mentioned Netflix and that he, this independent producer, is paying for her commissary now, is paying for her telephone privileges and is even talking about money, $10,000 and up for her story. So, that's what the defense tried to portray.

But then the defense says, you were arrested in October of 2023, so you kept inside, never said anything, what the truth was. And as soon as my client, Brendan Banfield, was arrested, you turn on him and you have this great story of how he was the planner of all of this. Listen to her response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JULIANA PERES MAGALHAES, WITNESS, BANFIELD'S AU PAIR AND MISTRESS: I withheld the truth for a long time just to myself, and it was a lot for me to deal with.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Okay.

MAGALHAES: And I just couldn't do with this anymore.

And at that point, my lawyer did not know the truth either.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, the truth -- you withholding the truth yourself and no one else knew?

MAGALHAES: Well, Brendan does. Brendan knew.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: She said that she didn't tell the truth because she loved him, and that she even wrote to him that she would take the rap, that she'd go down. But then she turned. So, here we are.

BERMAN: Is there, is there other evidence that bolsters her claims?

CASAREZ: Well, this is going to be a CSI trial. Let me tell you, there's going to be so much forensics in this case. And the prosecutor said in openings, look at the forensics. It's going to match her testimony.

BERMAN: Right. Jean Casarez, thank you very much. We should say you were following this all day long on the CNN app, CNN All Access. Thanks for joining us this morning. Kate?

BOLDUAN: It was all smiles as they arrived back to Earth. The space crew home after a full month early. The search now for answers about the medical emergency that triggered this early departure and return.

And dangerous flashfloods are being seen in a popular tourist spot in Australia, cars floating out to sea. The emergency evacuations now in place. We have details. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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