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Renee Good's Brothers Testify on Capitol Hill; Interview with Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-FL): Trump Says GOP Should Take Over Voting Process, Nationalize Elections; U.S. Shoots Down Iranian Drone, Iranian Boats Threaten U.S. Tanker; Pirro Walks Back Threat to jail People Who Bring a Gun to DC. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired February 03, 2026 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

BRENT GANGER, RENNE GOOD'S BROTHER: ... But they keep coming back, stronger, brighter, spreading seeds of hope everywhere they land. Renee planted those seeds in all of us, in her children, in her family, in friends, co-workers, and people who maybe didn't even realize they needed her light at the time. And sunlight, sunlight doesn't ask for recognition, it just gives.

It warms, it nurtures, it helps things grow. Renee did that for us. She helped us grow.

She helped us believe in ourselves. She helped us see the good, even when life felt heavy. Renee is not gone from us.

She's in the light that finds us on hard days. She's in the resilience we didn't know we had until we needed it. She's in the laughter, the memories, the love that continues to grow.

Like dandelions, like sunlight, and like Renee. Thank you.

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): Thank you. Thank you, Brent and Luke, for that really powerful appeal to the nation's conscience. And I hope to our colleagues on both sides of the aisle, and I hope that all of our colleagues will join in seeking the action that you just described that is so important, not just as a tribute to your sister, but as a way to prevent the kind of lawless brutality that caused her death, literally murder.

So thank you for being here today. We are going to now have the second panel come forward and excuse the first.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: We've been listening to Brent and Luke Ganger, the brothers of 37-year-old Renee Good, a mother of three who was killed by ICE agents in Minneapolis. Brent Ganger, an emotional testimony describing Renee as someone who made things seem like they were going to be OK. Someone who, when she walked into a room, things felt lighter.

Luke describing her as a beautiful American. Also saying that over the last two weeks, they've hoped that her death would inspire change across the country. They say their family is saddened that that has not happened.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: We'll be right back after a quick break.

[15:35:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: The White House is now trying to clarify President Trump's call for Republicans to take over and nationalize voting, remarks that directly challenged the constitutional role of states. The president made the comments while repeating false claims of widespread voter fraud.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Republicans should say, we want to take over, we should take over the voting, the voting in at least many -- 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting. We have states that are so crooked and they're counting votes.

We have states that I won that show I didn't win. Now you're going to see something in Georgia where they were able to get with the court order -- and the ballots. You're going to see some interesting things come out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: And we're joined now by Republican Congressman Carlos Gimenez of Florida. Sir, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us. We're hearing now from the White House, and the press secretary is saying that the president was actually referring to the SAVE Act, which of course would require proof of citizenship to vote.

But what the president actually said was we should take over the voting in 15 states. Does his proposal raise concerns for you?

REP. CARLOS GIMENEZ (R-FL): I don't, I don't want to take over the voting methods of the states. We need to standardize some things throughout the nation for federal elections. Voter ID would be one.

And then when is it that a ballot will be counted? I know that in my home county of Miami Dade County, when I was the mayor, I was also the supervisor of elections. No ballots that came in after seven o'clock at night on election night would be counted.

Yet there are states where ballots are coming in, you know, days and not weeks after they're still counted. That's inconsistent. And so it puts some, some states, at a disadvantage.

And so we need to kind of level the playing field, but not nationalizing elections, maybe standardizing some aspects of those elections, yes.

KEILAR: Well, it's inconsistent, but the Constitution allows for that, doesn't it? GIMENEZ: Well, the Constitution also allows for federal elections that the federal government can dictate the terms of those elections for federal positions, not for state elections. And so, that's what I'm talking about. Maybe standardizing some of those things so that we have one standard throughout the nation.

If not, we have what we have now. In Florida, we have the election results in hours. In California, it takes weeks.

That's not fair. That's not right. So we should standardize it to one standard that's fair for all.

KEILAR: All right, so when you're looking at what the Trump administration is doing, you know, for instance, I'll just name off a few things. One seizing 2020 election materials in Georgia, to seeking this detailed voter information from 23 States and D.C., as they're seeking to build an apparent database of voter information that experts fear could be used to selectively challenge voter eligibility, maybe in the midterms.

[15:40:00]

Three, you have the linking the Minnesota ICE crack down to the administration's demands for unredacted voter rolls from States. How should we be looking at all of these things together? Because it's raising a lot of alarms for many people.

GIMENEZ: Well, in Georgia, I believe that there was a court order that said that they had to turn over, especially Fulton County had some discrepancies that Fulton County was trying to hide for a long time. Now they just need to bring it to light. And maybe those discrepancies are completely valid and there was no problem there.

But I always think that the best course of action is transparency and we have to have -- we must have transparency in our electoral process. And so when jurisdictions try to hide information that doesn't, you know, give us any comfort level, we need to have transparency. And so that's what I want.

You know, if you have -- if there are voter rolls that are in question, that people there may not be valid, or you have people there that shouldn't be voting, then they shouldn't be voting. OK. And so that's why we need a consistent set of standards for federal elections.

Who can vote. When will the votes be counted? How will they be counted? And when do the votes stop being counted?

That I think needs to be standardized and that these, all these records need to be open to the public. That way, when there's ever any question of the validity of any election, we can get to it right away. The problem that we have now is that people are -- you can have all these conspiracy theories because, you know, people are trying to hide the information.

That's the last thing you want to do. You want to bring this to light. KEILAR: Well, there have been a number of recounts in Georgia that have shown President Trump did not win there. But when you're talking about all of this information being out there and being public, we're talking about a lot of personal details of voters. You're comfortable with that.

GIMENEZ: Personal details are the voter. What I got from when I was a supervised elections, what we had was the voter's name, the address, age, et cetera, what party they were from. And that's about what we got, OK.

And were they eligible to vote? I don't see that as any kind of invasion of privacy. You're a voter. You should be somebody who is valid or eligible to vote to keep the electoral process pure. And so that we have confidence in our elections.

And now you may say a hundred times that it's false claims, et cetera, but there are a number of people in this country that don't believe that. OK. They believe that some people --

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: You said people can see, I was just, I was misunderstanding that you were saying make it public, or it sounds like you're saying for, for voting officials, not for it to be public. I just want to be clear about that. You said some people can see it.

GIMENEZ: Look, if somebody wants to -- if somebody wants to look at my voting -- my voter registration, have at it, man. There's nothing there that would cause me any heartburn. I mean, it's got my name, where I live, you know, how old I am, what party, you know, that I'm registered -- registered to, it doesn't have much more information than that. And so you can -- you can take a look at that anytime you want, but, you know, look, there are obviously a number of people, --

KEILAR: You don't really want someone to knowing were you live, right?

GIMENEZ: You know, can I answer the question?

I want to cancel -- I want to answer the question. OK.

So the question, there are a number of people in this country that feel something happened there. The best way to resolve that is by being open with all of the election material to make sure that it was a fair election. In Fulton County, they tried to stop something like 300,000 registered, you know, votes that were counted that had irregularities.

What caused that irregularity? That's 300,000 people. Was it a, a clerical error?

What were these votes counted? Should they have been counted or not? Those are the questions that need to be answered, not only just in Georgia, but around the country.

And when we do that, then you will have people say, yes, we have fair, honest elections throughout the United States. And the results were valid. I haven't said that Joe Biden didn't win the election.

I always said he did, but are there questions that need to be answered? Absolutely. There are questions that need to be answered so that we can get back to the time when I was younger, when yes, election results were election results.

That's who won. And there were no questions about it.

KEILAR: Well, we'll never get back to the time when any of us was younger, but I do just want to say, and we are out of time. These questions have been answered. Bill Barr was clear about the outcome of the election and perhaps no amount of answers is going to stop conspiracy theorists about some of these elections and satisfy them.

GIMENEZ: You're right.

KEILAR: Congressman Carlos Jimenez, thank you. Thank you so much for being with us.

GIMENEZ: Thank you.

KEILAR: We appreciate it. We'll be right back.

[15:45:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: We're learning of two military confrontations between the U.S. and Iran today. In the first incident, there was a Navy fighter jet from the USS Abraham Lincoln that shot down an Iranian drone that aggressively approached the aircraft carrier.

SANCHEZ: During the second, the U.S. military says two gunboats operated by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps threatened to board and seize a U.S. flag tanker in the Strait of Hormuz. But U.S. forces escorted the tanker to safety. All of this, of course, happening just days before U.S. and Iranian officials are set to meet for diplomatic talks.

Let's get some perspective now from CNN global affairs analyst, Kim Dozier. Kim first walk us through these two back-to-back incidents, how you see them.

KIM DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, this is Iran saying, you want to give us a hard time. Here's what we could do. After that Iranian version of the predator was shot down.

It could have been a surveillance drone. It could have been armed. We don't know what it was doing in the general airspace of the Abraham Lincoln.

[15:50:00]

But oil markets responded by oil futures jumped by a dollar a barrel. So between that and also the way they harassed a U.S. flag tanker, the message is, remember we could close this 20 mile straight of Hormuz and that would affect 80 percent of the oil traveling to -- throughout Asia, as well as the rest of the world.

Oil prices would probably spike. They could also ask their Yemeni allies to close or harass people going through the Bab al-Mandab and basically stop trade worldwide with these two major waterways. And so it's just a reminder without any violence with just the threat of it, this is what they could do.

KEILAR: Iran is talking about wanting to change the location of these talks from Turkey to Oman. And it's, I mean, it's kind of seen as they're dragging their feet. Right.

And I wonder what you think it means for the possibility of an actual strike by the U.S. on Iran, especially as you have Trump just yesterday referencing this large military buildup again.

DOZIER: Yes, you know, Turkey is considers itself an ally of Iran and had offered it space for these talks on Friday. It's not clear why Tehran wants to move them to Oman, where they have even closer allies, but it is a signal that they're trying to regain control of this situation.

So it's not just the U.S. president ordering them around. At this point, the message will be received by all of the Gulf countries that here's what could happen to your oil supplies, your oil deliveries, et cetera. So the pressure will still be coming from Saudi, the Qataris, et cetera, on the White House, pushing for talks first.

And the White House would like to get something in terms of nuclear concessions, though that's not likely. Even more importantly, they want to talk about the ballistic missiles that have been revived and could reach Israel as well as other parts of the Gulf. So the U.S. will be holding out, I think for talks, but still, it just reminds you of how things can get dangerous when you've got all this firepower now collected in pretty close quarters.

KEILAR: Kim Dozier, thank you so much for being with us, great perspective.

And ahead, backlash from gun advocates and Republicans after D.C. U.S. attorney Jeanine Pirro suggests she'd prosecute anyone who brings a firearm to the nation's Capitol next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Gun rights groups are sounding off after U.S. attorney for Washington D.C., Jeanine Pirro threatened to arrest and jail anyone who enters the Capitol with a firearm, regardless of whether or not they have a license. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEANINE PIRRO U.S. ATTORNEY FOR WASHINGTON D.C.: And you bring a gun into the district, you mark my words, you're going to jail. I don't care if you have a license in another district. And I don't care if you're a law abiding gun owner somewhere else, you bring a gun into this district, count on going to jail and hope you get the gun back. (END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: CNN correspondent, Brian Todd is with us now on this. And Pirro's kind of, she's walking these back as are a number of folks in the administration.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. She's saying guys, hey, basically don't think about what I said last night. Just, I meant the illegal carrying of firearms in the district. But still it's not -- it was too late, basically to avoid brushback from fellow Republicans and from the gun lobby.

Here are some quotes. This is from the National Association for Gun Rights. Again, this is what, -- after what Pirro said last night on Fox. Quote, "Jeanine Pirro threatening to arrest people for carrying in D.C., even if they are law abiding and licensed shows how broken and out of touch these gun laws are unacceptable and intolerable comments by a sitting us attorney."

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said this quote, "Second Amendment rights are not extinguished just because an American visits D.C. American gun owners who conceal carry are among the most law abiding citizens in the nation. They are friends of law enforcement. They should not be targeted by law enforcement."

Also Trump's supporters in Congress are posting on X, basically brushing back on Jeanine Pirro. Again, Congressman Eric Burleson, Republican from Missouri says quote, "Judge Janine's comments on Fox are a direct assault on the Constitution telling law abiding Americans they'll go to jail for exercising their Second Amendment rights in D.C. that's tyranny, plain and simple."

And this from Congressman Greg Steube, a Republican from Florida quote, "I bring a gun into the district every week @USAAttyPirro. I have a license in Florida and D.C. to carry, and I will continue to carry to protect myself and others come and take it!"

Well, here is what Jeanine Pirro kind of amended this morning on X take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PIRRO: I am a proud supporter of the Second Amendment. I have guns myself. We're taking guns off the street, illegal guns in the hands of criminals who want to use those guns to victimize law abiding citizens.

There's a big difference here. You're responsible. You follow the laws.

You're not going to have a problem with me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TODD: But we talked to a Stephen Gutowski. He is the publisher of the firearms policy publication, The Reload. I talked to him a short time ago.

He says, he points out this is kind of a snowball effect. This is President Trump and his appointees, butting heads. It's a pattern now, butting heads with the gun lobby and with fellow Republicans over gun carry laws.

After the Alex Pretti shooting in Minneapolis, he pointed out, Trump said this, quote, "You can't have guns. You can't walk in with guns, seeming to blame Pretti's death for the fact that he was armed. Cash Patel backed that up.

Gun rights groups, including the NRA, brushed back on President Trump after that comment. Also, guys, he did this in 2018, as you remember, after the Parkland shooting in Florida, which killed seventeen people. His quote was, "Take the guns first, go through due process second." The NRA and others push back on that. This is a pattern.

SANCHEZ: Very quickly, Brian, what does D.C. law say?

TODD: Well, according to what we've been able to find out about D.C.'s gun carry laws, they are more strict than almost any other place in the country. They do require gun owners to register their guns with the district, and they do not recognize concealed carry permits from other states, gun rights groups like the NRA and others. They have complained that that's unconstitutional and too harsh.

[16:00:00]

A lot of people do agree with that. It's a very harsh gun carry law here in D.C.

KEILAR: Yes, and they've only had that somewhat recently because of a Supreme Court decision. So very interesting. Brian, thank you, great reporting.

And "THE ARENA" with Kasie Hunt starts right now.

END