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Justice Department Expected to Ramp Up Efforts to Deliver on Trump's Weaponization Priorities; Epstein Victims' Lawyers Ask Judges to Force Takedown of Released Files, Citing "Thousands of Redaction Failures"; Democrat Wins Texas District That Trump Won by 17 Points; NASA Begins Loading Rocket With Propellant in Crucial Test. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired February 02, 2026 - 13:30   ET

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

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[13:30:04]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": New today, a source tells CNN the Justice Department is poised to reinvigorate probes into officials who investigated President Trump. According to someone familiar with the plan, the DOJ's Weaponization Working Group is expected to meet today and then every day after that.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Attorney General Pam Bondi started the group last year to root out what she called politicized justice under the Biden administration. CNN's Paula Reid has some new reporting on all of this. So, Paula, what are you learning about this group and these meetings?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: The Justice Department is clearly eager to turn the page after Friday's release of additional Epstein documents. So today, they're going to meet to try and reinvigorate this group that, as you noted, the Attorney General laid out the mission for this group when she first got into office. And she laid out about seven areas that she wanted to focus on. They include all the prosecutors who investigated Trump while he was out of office.

These are pet issues for him. We know the president has admonished Justice Department officials for not delivering on more of these kinds of investigations. There's also some issues that are important to Republicans at large. They have a lot of questions about things that happened in the Biden administration, including what they allege was discrimination against Catholics, a memo that went out trying to protect school boards from threats from parents, what they allege are actions taken against anti-abortion activists, and certain protections for whistleblowers. These are pet Republican issues. This is what the group was supposed to focus on, this long list of stuff.

But after a year, they haven't produced anything publicly. And again, they're under a lot of pressure for the White House. So they're expected to meet today, meet every day, with the goal of delivering something on one of these seven priorities in the next few weeks. SANCHEZ: That's something to keep an eye on. Paula Reid, thank you so much. Let's get some perspective now on this story with Chad Mizelle. He served as acting General Counsel for DHS under President Trump. He's also a former DOJ Chief of Staff under Attorney General, Pam Bondi. Chad, thank you so much for sharing part of your afternoon with us.

So, as we just heard there from Paula, a year after being launched, we're hearing the group is now set to meet daily to produce results in the coming months. Why the timing of this coming now? Why is this happening now?

CHAD MIZELLE, FORMER DHS ACTING GENERAL COUNSEL UNDER TRUMP: Well, first off, thank you so much for having me. Whenever you look at what DOJ needs to do, it is to ensure that some of the past mistakes and weaponizations that happened in the Department of Justice never happen again. And without accountability, you are bound to repeat the mistakes of the past.

And so, what this Weaponization Working Group is going to continue doing is looking at some of these efforts. They've already done some of this, right? There have been reports about lying to Congress, some of the things that happened with John Bolton, a couple other administration officials, things related to Arctic Frost, things related to other oversight documents where it appears that prior administrations weren't particularly truthful with the American people or members of Congress. Those are the types of investigations that I expect to continue happening.

SANCHEZ: I do wonder how much of this is tied directly to the president's publicly calling out Attorney General Bondi, admonishing her, pressing her to go after people he's had issues with.

MIZELLE: I don't think it's about that. Listen, I think that these are people that the American people have had issues with. The American people have an issue with the political opponent using and weaponizing the Department of Justice to raid the home of a rival, to sift through personal effects of the rival, to drag them out in a very public spectacle time and time and time again. That's what the American people wanted.

That's why they put Donald J. Trump into office. And now, what I see the Department of Justice doing is delivering on the promise that President Trump made to the American people, which is we're going to focus on violent crime. We're not going to focus on weaponization.

SANCHEZ: I do wonder, though, with some of the people that have been floated as potential targets, what the difference is, legally or ethically, from the president effectively saying that he wants certain rivals of his, former critics to be arrested, persecuted, and the kind of political influence the group was created to root out. I mean, he specifically said in a tweet I'm holding here that we can't delay any longer, Justice must be served now. They're all guilty as hell. Nothing is going to be done. I mean, does it not stand out to you that the president is exactly doing what this task force is intended to prevent? MIZELLE: Absolutely not. Again, if there is no accountability, we are going to repeat the mistakes of the past. If there's no accountability for improperly using the Department of Justice or lying to members of Congress or lying to grand juries or not presenting them with full evidence or continuing to use the IC to spy on your political rivals --

[13:35:00]

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SANCHEZ: Do you have evidence?

MIZELLE: If you don't have any accountability there, it's going to continue happening.

SANCHEZ: You mentioned a moment ago, I assume you were alluding to the search and seizure of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago when you were talking about Justice Department going after a president's rival. There is no evidence thus far that President Biden directed Attorney General, Merrick Garland to do that. In fact, many Democrats criticized Merrick Garland for not doing it sooner, not Joe Biden though.

Are you referring to that? Because Jack Smith went through a legal process. There were warrants that were obtained. There were grand juries that signed off on the indictments against President Trump. Do you have any evidence that those investigations, those grand juries were lied to or judges were misled?

MIZELLE: First off, I would just say as a matter of common sense, do we really think the Department of Justice raided the home of the former president and candidate to be the next president of the United States, and nobody in Joe Biden's White House knew about that? So just as a common sense gut check, that doesn't pass the self-test. I don't say even more than that. I'm a little limited in what I can say here.

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SANCHEZ: (Inaudible) after it happened and someone actually directing it to happen, though.

MIZELLE: That is not what I'm talking about. That is not what I'm talking about. I think that as DOJ continues digging in, evidence is going to continue coming out showing that the Biden White House was directly involved.

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SANCHEZ: Do you have evidence now of that?

MIZELLE: There will be evidence coming out. I suspect that the Biden administration -- as a former government official, I'm limited in what I can say, but I will say that I think evidence is going to come out that the Biden White House was directly involved. SANCHEZ: It sounds like you're insinuating that there's something there and perhaps hiding under the cover of there being something in an investigation. Why don't you just say it now? Have you seen evidence that Joe Biden directed the search of Mar-a-Lago for classified documents? Joe Biden, who, by the way, had his own classified documents in his own property, that he had his attorneys come out and say, hey, we have this stuff. Come look for more stuff from the federal government. A very different posture than President Trump took.

MIZELLE: Here's what I am able to speak to. Do we have evidence that on the eve of President Trump taking the oath of office in early January 2017, do we have evidence that the intelligence community was being weaponized against him, that false accusations related to potential ties with Russia or campaign interference related to Russia was happening, and that that ended up being a major distraction and undermining democracy in a very real way for years during his presidency? Absolutely.

And that is the kind of thing that this Weaponization Working Group needs to be focused on. Because, again, if we don't get to the bottom of that, it will happen time and time again. And the American people deserve an answer.

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SANCHEZ: I appreciate you not directly answering the question and going back to 2016 when there was, at the time, credible evidence regarding links between the Trump campaign and agents of a foreign government that were investigated and were looked into. And I do have a limited amount of time, so I do want to ask you about the recent release of more Epstein files. CNN is reporting that a large number of victims saw their names, which were supposed to be redacted, published in these documents.

I wonder, Chad, how that can happen? How it happens that these victims' names are published after months of hearing from the administration that their intent is to protect victims. Who do you think should be held accountable?

MIZELLE: Well, listen, that certainly was their intent. But whenever they're working under a timeline from Congress to produce all Epstein files, which in this case turned out to be approximately 3.5 million pages, and they're doing that literally in a matter of months. And, again, by the way, the universe of documents they reviewed was something like six million pages. So they had 500 attorneys and FBI agents working around the clock in order to review these things.

I think that they did an incredible job. I think that they should be commended for that. Are mistakes going to happen? Absolutely. There's no document production crew in all of the United States, no law firm in all of the United States that could go through on this time frame with this many documents and have no errors. But I think, relatively speaking, the amount of errors is minor and that DOJ did a very commendable job here. SANCHEZ: Just for context, that timeline that DOJ was presented with came about because lawmakers heard from survivors who were frustrated that this administration said that they would release these files soon after taking office. It had been more than a year, and that still hadn't happened.

Nevertheless, Chad Mizelle, we appreciate the time and you sharing your perspective. Thanks for joining us.

MIZELLE: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Up next, to the major upset upsetting Republicans, how a Democrat flipped a MAGA stronghold in deep red Texas.

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[13:44:32]

KEILAR: A major reality check for Republicans heading into the midterm elections later this year. Over the weekend, Democrats came out on top in two Texas special elections. Christian Menefee won his race for the vacant 18th Congressional District, further chiseling away at Republicans' already razor-thin House majority. But it's another state-level race that's setting off Republican alarms today.

Democrat Taylor Rehmet met the -- beat, I should say, the Trump-backed Leigh Wambsganss by 14 points in a state Senate race.

[13:45:00]

It's a district that Trump won by 17 points just over a year ago, which is nearly a 31-point swing. So, how much did Democrats spend to pull off the upset? According to records, only about one-tenth of what Republicans poured into this race.

And while many are taking notice, others in the GOP have a different explanation for why their candidate lost, going full Milli Vanilli to blame it on the rain.

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REP. PETE SESSIONS, (R-TX): The success of a rain dance has a lot to do with timing. And what happened is there was a huge snowstorm, ice storm really, that hit North Texas and Central Texas.

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KEILAR: Joining us now is Chuck Todd, Host of "The Chuck Toddcast." All right, I wonder what you think happened here, Chuck. You have Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis. He didn't blame it on the rain. He says special elections are quirky, but Republicans should be clear- eyed about the political environment heading into the midterms. What do you think?

CHUCK TODD, HOST OF "THE CHUCK TODDCAST": Oh, the rain should have been a bad asset to the Republicans. And here's why, right? This is, you know, the lower the turnout, the more this becomes a test of the political basis. And in theory, in Texas, in that area, the Republicans have a bigger base than the Democrats do. So that, and I think what you're really seeing, it's an intensity issue, right? Democrats can't wait.

We've seen this now for over a year. It's very similar to what we saw in 2018 and the run-up to the 2018 midterms. We saw a little bit of it in 2020. And then we've seen it again this last year, where it seems as if Democrats will crawl on broken glass to vote wherever the election is, whenever the election is.

Now, do I think 31 points is, what I would say is temper your enthusiasm about the 31-point overperformance. This was held on a Saturday. This was a runoff. This was, you know, there were a lot of unusual circumstances. But it's still another overperformance, and it fits a consistency. This just happens to be one of the larger ones where I do, you know, I actually think the Saturday issue is actually -- if that Republican that you quoted wanted more credibility, he'd have had more credibility saying Saturday sort of was a bit more problematic for them.

But I think overall, this just shows you, and this shows up in the polling, where when you ask the question, you know, how enthusiastic or how excited are you from a scale of 1 to 10, are you about voting in this next election? Democrats are performing anywhere from 8 to 10 points higher than Republicans right now when it comes to enthusiasm for voting. And so you see this.

That's a massive turnout differential. Let me put it one more way, Brianna. When you see political waves happen in our recent history, it's a combination of two things, enthusiastic base of the out party and demoralized base of the party in power. And that's the situation that I think we're starting to see develop here. We still got a long way to go, but that's what this looks like and why I think we still have a Category 4 or Category 5 midterm storm building off the coast of this country.

KEILAR: Yeah, so you can extrapolate, it sounds like a lot from this state race, even when you're looking at these federal races in the midterms. What does it tell you about Republican efforts to redistrict in Texas? How are you seeing that in light of this?

TODD: Look, what they did was is they diluted some of their very Republican districts and be careful because, you know, this happened in, you know, we all use the phrase deep red Texas, but this happened in Tarrant County, Tarrant County's Fort Worth. Tarrant County has been a Republican county for a long time, but it has actually been trending towards the Democrats. These are George Bush and John Cornyn voters.

These are not Donald Trump and Ken Paxton voters. And that's another thing I take away here. I think the Republican nominee, way too conservative for this district. She was a religious school board advocate and that's on one end of the spectrum. That's playing less well in more of these highly populated suburban areas in Texas. The suburbs of Dallas and Fort Worth are no different than the suburbs in Northern New Jersey and Northern Virginia.

They might be slightly more Republican than these suburbs here, but they're certainly not deeply ideological based conservative type voters. So, all of the dilution they've done in order to create more potentially majority Republican districts really will only benefit them if this were a presidential year. All of this Republican redistricting makes zero sense in the midterms and makes a ton of sense in a presidential year.

But we're going on a midterm year where you're going to see the Trump voter not show up and the resistance voter enthusiastically show up.

[13:50:00]

KEILAR: I do wonder how Democrats you think should be viewing this because especially in the middle of all of this controversy over ICE and what we've seen in Minneapolis. I was talking to Senator Ed Markey last week. I asked him repeatedly whether he wanted to reform or abolish ICE and he really wouldn't answer the question, but then later that night, he fully endorsed this idea of abolishing ICE and you have some Democrats who I think have concerns about that message. Is that a defund the police kind of message that there could be some backlash about? What do you think Democrats should be thinking at this moment?

TODD: Everything has got to be about the voter and what is the voter concerned about, right? The voter doesn't like the chaos at the border. That's why Donald Trump won in '24. The voter also doesn't like the chaos of law enforcement on the streets of Minneapolis, which is why they don't like this.

That doesn't mean they want no enforcement whatsoever, right? So I do think you have to be careful here. This candidate in Texas focused on two issues that are really ripe, not just in Texas. I think it's ripe across the board. One, of course, affordability. The issue of cost, that is a nationwide issue. And the second issue he ran on, which is a much more of a state issue, but frankly, it's popping up in a lot of states this year, is education, right? Texas went heavy into vouchers.

We're seeing Democrats are over-performing in Iowa, Texas. I will see if this happens in Florida, but every state where Republican legislatures have gotten aggressive on the voucher front, there has been a huge backlash to this, particularly in the rural areas. As much as they love "school choice," if you live in rural America, you don't have that kind of choice. There's not multiple schools to choose from. So there's been disappointment in how this has worked.

The fact that that's getting traction in Texas tells you something. This is how we've seen Democrats succeed in places like Kansas in the past. It's why Iowa Democrats have never felt so good about an election year, because they went through this heavy voucherization. So, the two issues that I think are really going to animate a lot of states, affordability across the board, but education and prioritizing where funding goes.

And again, notice I didn't say ICE. It doesn't mean you ignore the issue, but it means you should couple it in a "they don't know how to run things" issue. If you get caught up in the debate, should there be ICE/shouldn't there be ICE, you're not going to win that argument, no matter what side you sit on.

KEILAR: Yeah. Really interesting on how those local issues are playing in many states. Chuck, great to speak with you. Thank you.

TODD: All right, Brianna.

KEILAR: Boris?

SANCHEZ: Now to some of the other headlines we're watching this hour. NASA has begun loading a rocket with 700,000 pounds of super-chilled propellant ahead of its moon-bound Artemis II mission. This crucial test is one of the final steps before the vehicle launches four astronauts into deep space. The outcome will be a factor in determining how soon NASA will be able to launch.

Also, the Rafah Crossing connecting Gaza and Egypt is now partially reopened nearly two years after Israel closed it. The restored access will allow some Palestinians who fled the war between Hamas and Israel to return for the first time, though CNN previously reported that only 150 will be allowed to leave Gaza each day. Only 50 will be allowed to enter the territory. What's more, steep prices required to cross in the past could make it too expensive for many Palestinians.

And two detainees at a Texas immigration facility have the measles, according to DHS. Authorities say the two began -- or are being held at the South Texas Family Residential Center some roughly 70 miles from Austin. They were immediately quarantined. They're now being monitored by medical staff. This, of course, comes days after DHS confirmed one measles case at an immigration facility in Arizona. A story to continue watching there.

Up next, renovations or rising cancellations? We have new reporting about President Trump's sudden decision to shut down the Kennedy Center for the next two years. Stay with us. We'll be right back.

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[13:58:46]

KEILAR: President Trump has plans for another big renovation project, this time the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The president says the prominent venue will close for the next two years starting July 4th. And he called the building's "tired, broken, and dilapidated state" as a key reason for the renovation.

Let's talk about this with CNN's Brian Stelter. So, Brian, we're hearing straight from the Kennedy family on this.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: Yes, we are. You know, the big question is, will closing down for two years make the Kennedy Center great again? And it sounds like a stretch, but Trump seems to have a big construction product in mind. Maria Shriver, the late president's niece who's been involved with the Kennedy Center for years, she offered to translate Trump's shocking Sunday night announcement. And here's what she wrote on X last night.

She said, "This is all due to Trump slapping his name on the building back in December." She said, quote, "Entertainers are canceling left and right. No one wants to perform there any longer. So Trump is shutting the place down." And, look, Shriver's far from the only one reaching that conclusion about this story. One liberal podcaster said, quote, "Just like his casinos, the Kennedy Center went out of business after Trump put his name on it."

Now, Trump is saying that this is going to revitalize the Kennedy Center by doing much needed repairs. But our colleagues here at CNN have reported that there have been talk within the organization about a temporary closure because of renovations, but also to stem the financial bleeding amid the backlash from artists. We can put on screen a partial list --