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Warm Weather out West but Cold for the East; Search for Nancy Guthrie; Tom Homan Speaks in Minnesota. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired February 04, 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: Van Dam to help us sort all this out. What the whatie (ph)? What is this?

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: At least -- at least for now. There is some light at the end of the tunnel. But the temperature contrast, I mean this is really a tale of two different seasons across the country. Western, summer-like temperatures, and winter temperatures over the east. Southern California, Los Angeles, could approach the 90 degree mark. And that's even warm by June and July standards. Great Falls, Montana, yes, you could set a record high tomorrow. Could reach 70 degrees. But what's important about that is it's going to be warmer than Tampa and Orlando.

What are we doing in the north western parts of the country where we should be enjoying snow and winter when we've got record breaking temperatures? The east is going to hold on to this cold air. There's another shot of arctic temperatures that will settle in for this weekend. I'm talking Saturday into Sunday. Look at these wind chill values for Buffalo, negative 18 on Saturday, negative 13 for Burlington. Even below zero for New York City. By the way, this is all accompanied by a clipper system that will move through, that will bring the potential of snow squalls. These are intense bursts of snow and wind.

But here's the light at the end of the tunnel, Sara. We're going to see the blues and purples go away and replace them with more reds. And, yes, that's going to make these stunned iguanas in Florida very, very happy.

SIDNER: You know I have a soft spot for the stunned iguanas there having grown up and seeing them.

VAN DAM: I know. I had to get it in there for you.

SIDNER: You had to get it in. They fall out of trees. They get so cold. But they are revived. And with this warm up, man, we're ready for it here in New York. That negative ten wind chill just made me angry.

VAN DAM: And they'll be warming (ph) up and I'm sure the East Coast too. All right.

SIDNER: Yay! All right, thank you, Derek Van Dam. Appreciate it.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: The new clues about Nancy Guthrie's pacemaker and the investigation into possible ransom notes, now more than three days after the mother of "Today" show host Savannah Guthrie's abducted -- was abducted from her home, the race against time to find her and the pleas for the public's help.

And the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, at the center of a highly classified whistleblower complaint that Congress is demanding now to see. What is this all about?

And the cutest game of the year is back, bigger and better than ever. Puppy Bowl 22 is almost here, and we got a little bit of a preview and a rundown of what you can expect from Team Ruff and Team Fluff. Honestly, it truly made my day.

I'm Kate Bolduan with Sara Sidner. John is out today. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

SIDNER: We begin with breaking news in the race to find 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, mother of NBC "Today" show anchor Savannah Guthrie. We're just learning that Nancy Guthrie's pacemaker sent a signal to her phone at around two in the morning on Sunday, and that was the last time the phone recorded a signal from her pacemaker. Investigators are combing through multiple tips and leads. Among them, at least two purported ransom notes sent to two media organizations. However, neither of those notes have been verified. There are still so many unanswered questions about Guthrie's disappearance this morning.

CNN's Marybel Gonzalez is in Pima County, Arizona.

What are you learning? What is the very latest from the scene?

MARYBEL GONZALEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Sara, good morning.

Well, one of the most pressing, lingering questions is, where is Nancy Guthrie? Now, in his latest update, the Pima County sheriff did not provide specific details into what leads they may have, what their investigation has told them so far. At times even candidly admitting to not having answers. So far, no suspects, no motives have been publicly identified.

But as you mentioned, investigators are aware of ransom notes in connection with Nancy's disappearance. They said that they are vetting those leads, those tips, I should say. TMZ and a local television station both reported to have received what appears to be ransom notes. They say they have forwarded those to authorities. And the sheriff here has confirmed to CBS that those have also now been sent to the Guthrie family.

Here is what he had to say about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is there anything in that note that seems credible at this moment that you're giving weight to?

SHERIFF CHRIS NANOS, PIMA COUNTY, ARIZONA: The entire note. That's what I would tell you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The entire note?

NANOS: When the note comes to us, we -- it's like any piece of evidence, you give it to us, you give us a lead, we're going to look at every aspect of that lead and work it as a lead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, you're not dismissing this note at this point?

NANOS: Absolutely not.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is potentially credible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GONZALEZ: Now, reporters also pressed the sheriff to share details on whether or not there was blood recovered at the scene, whether there was forced entry or to share a specific timeline of when they think that Miss Nancy was taken from her home.

[09:05:13]

Again, the sheriff refusing to share specifics on those details.

What he did emphasize is that they found evidence inside the Guthrie home to demonstrate that she was not -- that she was taken against her will. This is not a case, he said, where she walked away on her own volition.

Now, at this time, investigators continue to urge the public to share any videos, photos or tips that can help lead them to where Miss Nancy Guthrie may be.

Sara.

SIDNER: Yes. And you see the number there. It's 1-800-CALL-FBI for the FBI tip line. There's also a local tip line.

Thank you for your reporting there. And our hearts still go out to the Guthrie family and Savannah, who we all watch and love.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely.

Joining us right now is Steve Moore, CNN law enforcement contributor, retired supervisory special agent for the FBI.

Steve, let me -- first, let's start with this new reporting that's coming in that Nancy Guthrie's pacemaker was -- last sent a signal to her phone, her iPhone, around 2:00 a.m. on Sunday. Her iPhone, we know from the sheriff, was one of the items that was left behind that they do have in their custody now. It raises a lot of questions of what can be --what can be learned from that, what data can't be learned from that. From an investigative standpoint, what are you wondering now that we know about the pacemaker and this detail?

STEVE MOORE, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CONTRIBUTOR: Well, it's interesting to me because, you know, it kind of reminds me of being back in the office in the FBI because you have to become experts on things you never knew about before. And right now the FBI agents and the sheriff's deputies are learning about pacemakers and what -- and how they transmit and what indications would be if certain things happened.

Right now I think the best that they would know is that, you know, these pacemakers use Bluetooth and not wi-fi. And so, what would happen is, if you separated Miss Guthrie from her phone, it would cease to get these signals. So, just because her pacemaker did not communicate with her phone, it didn't mean it was non-operational.

BOLDUAN: Yes. Absolutely. But it's one more data point when there's -- as I was talking last hour, so many rumors and getting more reporting and clear information coming through the official channels is an important aspect of this.

And part of this is, you have the sheriff's office, Steve, they say they're aware of TMZ saying that it had been sent a ransom note. We do not know -- we don't know that it's been verified at this point. But what do you make of this aspect of it? How do they quickly determine if it's authentic? How seriously do you take it? What do you do if you're back on the job with this?

MOORE: What you do, first of all, is, as the sheriff said, you take it seriously. But I disagree with his term of take -- of saying that it's instantly credible just because you received it. A credible ransom note would give information, known only to the -- known only to the kidnaper, and it would usually provide information about the health or well-being of the victim, including some information from the victim that would be unique, that only that victim would know or the rest of the family. If it doesn't have any of that stuff, it could be one of these horrible people who use this as an opportunity to gain something, attention or money from somebody else's tragedy.

BOLDUAN: Yes, you know, it's a push and pull, right? It's a delicate balance of putting information out to the public to get there, to continue to get their assistance, but not giving too much. We talk about this often with missing people or even for hunts for suspects and where they could -- manhunt for suspects and where they could be.

MOORE: Right.

BOLDUAN: Reporters have pressed the sheriff for details on whether there were signs of forced entry, items missing, blood at the scene, a specific time frame that the public should be focused on, and the sheriff's take about that specifically was, I don't really want to get into narrowing -- one second. Oh, OK.

Steve, can you stick with me? The control room says we need to jump over to Minneapolis right now where we know border czar Tom Homan is speaking. Let's jump in.

TOM HOMAN, BORDER CZAR: ICE will conduct these operations of transnational criminal organization investigations with a focus on national security and public safety. I want to be clear, just because you prioritize public safety threats don't mean we forget about everybody else.

[09:10:03]

We will continue to enforce the immigration laws in this country. To help execute this, we have developed and implemented a multi-agency surge task force with an operational framework that clarifies lines of effort, integrated enforcement, investigative and special response efforts. A unified joint operations center has been established to manage all operations and ensure efforts align with priorities of the mission.

This reorganization also enables ICE to leverage joint intelligence capabilities, to effectively target threats, as well as to reduce overall personal footprint and enhance public safety and confidence in the agency's capabilities and presence here. I have also ensured that officials from legal internal affairs offices remain on the ground as long as this operation continues.

During our efforts to identify and implement improvements of how operations are planned, conducted and managed, we identified a gap in regard to the use of body worn cameras. This was actually raised by the workforce when I started walking around talking to people here. Some officers and agents had them, some didn't. That inconsistency was unacceptable. So, we moved immediately to prioritize full body cam deployment in the city. I discussed this with Secretary Noem a couple days ago, and she made the decision to deploy them. The plan is to deploy them nationwide, but it's a priority for this city right now. There's actually $20 million in the spending bill to further fund the deployment of body cameras.

The president's supportive of this decision because we have nothing to hide. We want to be fully transparent in what we do.

The American people seek and deserve professional and trustworthy law enforcement. And I and the president expect that any misconduct will not be tolerated and will be -- and be swiftly addressed.

The integration, structuring, and resources we have implemented will help ensure accountability and that targeted enforcement operations have a focus on national security threats and public safety threats and they are conducted effectively, safely and appropriately. Again, this is smarter enforcement, not less enforcement.

For those who are not a national security threat or public safety -- public safety risk, you are not exempt from immigration enforcement actions. If you're in the country illegally, you are not off the table. And let me be clear, President Trump fully intends to achieve mass deportations during this administration, and immigration enforcement actions will continue every day throughout this country. President Trump made a promise, and we have not directed otherwise. I heard rumors we have. Untrue.

Given that many public safety threats on our communities, many of which poured across the border during the Biden administration, it makes sense to prioritize public safety risk right now. Again, prioritization doesn't mean you forget about everybody else. But we have a criminal here, a non-criminal here. The criminal has to be arrested first because they're the biggest threat to the community.

My goal was -- with the support of President Trump, is to achieve a complete drawdown and end this surge as soon as we can. But that is largely contingent upon the end of the illegal and threatening activities against ICE and its federal partners that we're seeing in the community. We will not draw down on personnel providing security for our officers. I will not let our officers be put at risk. So, we will not draw down on personnel providing security and responding to hostile incidents until we see a change in what's happening with the lawlessness of impeding and interfering and assaulting of ICE and Border Patrol officers.

It's against the law to forcibly assault, resist, oppose, impede, intimidate and interfere with federal law enforcement, including ICE officers and Border Patrol agents. Doxxing law enforcement to threaten them and their families because they're executing their sworn duties to enforce immigration law that Congress passed is unacceptable. And it's shameful and incomprehensible to me that any -- that this unlawful and threatening behavior is being tolerated by anyone.

[09:15:05]

As far as what I saw yesterday with the roadblocks being set up, you're not going to stop ICE. You're not going to stop Border Patrol. The only thing you're doing is irritating your community who want to go get groceries or pick their children up or whatever.

I talked to the chief of police, and he committed to taking swift action on those illegal roadblocks. They're illegal. We shouldn't tolerate them.

Again, a complete drawdown is going to depend on the cooperation, continued cooperation of local and state law enforcement, and the decrease of the violence, the rhetoric and the attacks against ICE and Border Patrol.

The federal law enforcement personnel, ICE and CBP and other partner agencies are patriots. And by -- and as they've carried out their duties patriotically, with integrity, with professionalism and compassion. I've said this many times, these men and women don't hang their heart on a hook when they come to work. President Trump and I strongly stand with them in the critical work they do to prevent harmful or otherwise dangerous people from entering or remaining in this country.

As part of the surge operation here, numerous criminal aliens have already been arrested. We've arrested 14 people who had homicide convictions, 139 people with sex related offenses, 28 gang members -- correct me, 139 assault convictions, 87 sex offenses, 28 gang members have been arrested, just to name a few. We're taking a lot of bad people off the street. Everybody should be grateful to them. Who in their right mind would want these dangerous criminals walking around their communities?

Everyone has a constitutional right to peacefully protest. President Trump and I, we completely support that. At the same time, professional law enforcement officers should and need to be able to perform their sworn duties without being harassed, impeded or assaulted. I want everyone, anyone to report instances of alleged misconduct or wrongdoing. There's a way to report that.

The Trump administration is taking violations of 18 USC 111, which is assaulting, impeding, interfering, we're taking that seriously. If you violate the law, you will be federally prosecuted.

In the past month, 158 people have been arrested for violation of one 111, 85 cases have been already accepted for prosecutions. The rest remain pending. We've had nine indictments of those who raided the church and additional cases are being worked.

Additionally, I've been saying this for almost a year now, hateful, extreme rhetoric against ICE personnel is completely unacceptable. Please stop. I said back in March of this year, if the hateful rhetoric didn't stop, I was afraid there would be bloodshed. And there has been. President Trump and I, Secretary Noem, none of us want to see any bloodshed. It is -- it is no doubt encouraging and inciting certain people to violate the law, wanting to harm and actually harm law enforcement, law enforcement and their families, is unacceptable.

I want to say, I appreciate the discussions had with the governor, Mayor Frey and the attorney general. We've had frank, honest discussions. We don't agree on everything, but we do agree on the need for public safety, and we do agree that ICE has a role to enforce the immigration laws of this country.

I would implore the governor and the A.G. and the mayor and other political officials to urge in the most strong and urgent way to ask for calm in the community and to end the resistance, the impediment, the interference. Again, protest, but stop impeding, stop interfering, stop violating the law, because we will arrest you.

[09:20:05]

In closing, President Trump and I would like to thank the men and women of ICE, Border Patrol, and other federal agencies on the ground here for your dedication to the oath you swore to enforce, the federal laws and promote public safety through the work you do. It hasn't been easy. I know the sacrifices you make. I know the sacrifices your families make. I know your families worry about you every day. I know you've been away from birthdays and anniversaries and holidays. I appreciate every. You know, I wore that green uniform. I love the United States Border Patrol. I was an ICE agent. I know the job you have. I know the tragedies you've seen. The president is with you.

I'm -- again, I want to thank Governor Walz, the attorney general and mayor for their candid, insightful, productive discussions we had. Again, I'm not saying we agree on everything, but I think we all already accomplished great things in Minnesota. I am optimistic we will achieve even more in the coming days to make this city safer.

I would also like to thank numerous local law enforcement officials I was able to meet with in the last nine days since I arrived here. I appreciate hearing from local law enforcement, their perspective on what's happening. I appreciate the desire to enhance communications between their agencies and our agencies. And that communication has been vastly improved.

I truly appreciate your commitment to respond to federal law enforcement in a time of need. Every chief I talked to, every one of them, promised to respond to any public safety issue when our officers are out doing their sworn duty. And people start crossing the line and they start impeding and interference, every police chief has committed to doing their job and enforce public safety.

We talked to a lot of sheriffs throughout the nation. We have unprecedented cooperation. I've yet to talk to a sheriff that said no. Theres still more sheriffs we are in discussions with and talking to, but I have not heard no. I think they want to do the right things for their communities too.

Lastly, I'd like to thank President Trump for his steadfast leadership and commitment to law enforcement, public safety and prosperity. I've said this many times, I've worked for six presidents and ten administrations. When it comes to public safety, border security, immigration enforcement, no one has done it better than President Trump. His success is unprecedented.

Later on today, Secretary Noem is having a press conference on our southern border. The most secure border in the history of this nation because of the leadership of President Trump and the men and women over there wearing the green uniform. The most secure border in the history of this country, which means less children are dying making that journey, less women and children being sex trafficked, less fentanyl getting into this country to kill our young people, less known suspected terrorists being released in this country. The most secure border in a lifetime gives us the strongest national security we've seen. You can't have strong national security without strong border security.

I wish I could be at that press conference, but the president has called me here. I just had a small part in it. The reason we had the most secure border is because of President Trump's leadership and the men and women wearing the green uniform, which I once wore.

I just reported, I was down there with Commissioner Scott, CBP Commissioner Scott, two weeks ago. We went through that border in boat, forward drive, and in the air. We toured the border in California, Texas and Arizona. And I -- and I did not see one illegal alien. Think about that. The last nine months, no one's been released on that border. The most secure border in the history of this nation. So, God bless the men and women of the Border Patrol. God bless President Trump for his leadership. And God bless the United States of America. And I'll take questions.

(CROSS TALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE). Go ahead.

REPORTER: You said that you're getting unprecedented cooperation. Where's that coming from? Is it coming from the sheriffs? Have you signed agreements with them? Are (INAUDIBLE) Ramsey County part of that?

[09:25:02]

And the 700 officers leaving Minnesota, are they Customs and Border Patrol or ICE or --

HOMAN: There's a mix. But we -- that number is based on, number one, the cooperation. Again, rather than having whole teams out looking for criminal aliens that was just released, now we have one agent at that jail picking that person up. That and the operation has been successful and there are a number of arrests. So, the target list is reducing. So, with the -- with the efficiencies of the jails, with the efficiencies of the prison system working with us, and the target list decreasing, we had a whole team looking at what makes sense, without risking officer safety and security teams. And that number is 700.

Look, we want to get back to the original footprint, the Minnesota footprint, of what ICE officers look like before this operation. Plus, the additional hires for the big, beautiful bill. A lot of these people, they got agents here from L.A., and New York and Portland. There's problems there too. So, we want to get people back to their home stations and enforce the immigration laws in those areas. But the vast majority of sheriffs, there's only a few that we -- we're still in consultation with. But this is unprecedented cooperation.

So again, I want to thank, you know, the sheriffs, the governor and the A.G. I think we're in a lot better place than we've ever been in. We've never had this kind of cooperation at this level. And I'm not leaving until we get it all done. But I'm happy to say, I'm extremely pleased with the leadership team and their outreach to the sheriffs, to the state, to the chiefs. I've talked to -- I've talked to many of them. I didn't talk to all of them. But I plan on talking to every one of them before I leave and thanking them for their cooperation.

REPORTER: Are you getting cooperation from Hennepin and Ramsey?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE). No, there's no more follow-ups.

Right here. Go ahead.

REPORTER: With everything that you've mentioned here right now, do you think this operation was a success here in Minnesota?

HOMAN: Yes, I think we -- I just listed a bunch of people we took off, you know, took off the streets of the twin cities. So, I think it was very effective as far as public safety goes. Was it a perfect operation? No. No. And I just told you, we created one unifying chain of command. Make sure everybody's on the same page. Make sure we're deconflicting targets. And making sure we follow the rules.

And I'm not saying anybody, you know, I don't think any purpose -- anybody purposely didn't do something they should have done. I'm saying that I brought a different set of eyes on this. I've done this for a long time. We made this operation more streamlined, and we established a unified chain of command.

So, everybody knows what everybody is doing. And not that it wasn't occurring before, but we improved upon that. So, in target enforcement operations, we, you know, we go out there and there needs to be a plan. And want to make sure everybody has a plan. But I'm not going to sit here and point fingers at anybody that they failed. There's a great operation. We took a lot of public safety threats off the street.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right. Right here.

REPORTER: Can I ask a quick numerical just clarification and then get to my main question, please?

So, 700 leaving effective immediately. How many will that leave here once that group is out?

HOMAN: Right around 2,000.

REPORTER: And what is the pre-operation footprint?

HOMAN: Well, that -- 150? A hundred fifty. A hundred fifty.

REPORTER: A hundred fifty is normal?

HOMAN: But we got to remember, now that there's -- we got specialization -- special agents on detail here doing the fraud investigation. They're not going anywhere. They're going to finish their job. I'm talking about immigration enforcement efforts.

REPORTER: Understood. So then my main question is just, we've talked to people who say they're protesting not the arrests of people with criminal backgrounds, but things like broad ICE patrols, random citizenship checks of people of color and the detainment but no charges of U.S. citizens. So, have you committed or will you commit to officers on the ground here ceasing those actions?

HOMAN: What I've made clear, we're doing targeted enforcement operations. When we leave this building, we know who we're looking for, where we're most likely to find them, what their immigration record is, what their criminal record is. But as we continue to be a force in the communities, when we go to arrest that criminal target, if we find an illegal alien there, they're coming. We're not going to turn a blind eye to illegal immigration. That's why this is -- that's why this partnership and this coordination is so important. We'd much rather work in the safety and security of the jail.

Look, I go to bed every night wondering if every one of our officers go home safely. I also am concerned that every person we're looking for go, you know, is taken into custody safely. The best way to do that is to have a target enforcement operation and a well planned operation. That's weighed me down for decades. So, get --

REPORTER: So, should we expect to see no more of that?

HOMAN: Pardon me.

REPORTER: Should we expect to see no more of those citizenship checks (INAUDIBLE)?

[09:30:00]

HOMAN: I have directed -- I have directed target enforcement operations. And we'll hold our officers to the highest standards. These are -- these are professionals. Again, you know, these --