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Trump Defends Pardoning Violent January 6 Rioters; Texas Town Fears Trump's Mass Deportation Threats; Rare Southern U.S. Snowfall; Israeli Military Launches Operation Iron Wall in West Bank; Trump: Putin Destroying Russia Over War in Ukraine. Aired 4:00-4:30a ET

Aired January 22, 2025 - 04:00   ET

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


[04:00:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I thought their sentences were ridiculous and excessive. These were people that actually love our country so we thought a pardon would be appropriate.

These are the hostages. Approximately 1,500 for a pardon.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was surprising to me that it was a blanket pardon.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're going to completely revamp public school lunch and we're going to get pharmaceutical ads off of TV.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's not coming for any one thing. He's coming for transparency.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm from Texas so it don't snow like that down here. It don't snow.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've never seen this much snow in my life.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my first snowball!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Live from London, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Max Foster and Christina Macfarlane.

FOSTER: Hello and a warm welcome to our viewers joining us from around the world. I'm Max Foster.

MACFARLANE: And I'm Christina Macfarlane. It's Wednesday January 22nd 9 a.m. here in London, 4 a.m. in Washington where Donald Trump is defending his decision to pardon January 6 rioters who violently assaulted police. He says those who were convicted have already served years in disgusting prisons and served them viciously.

Top police organizations in the U.S. say they're deeply discouraged by pardons from Trump and Joe Biden for people who killed or assaulted law enforcement. FOSTER: Some of them were only convicted last week so they're only in prison for four days. So not all of them in for years.

Trump advisor Elon Musk says the new administration might prosecute officials who slow down additional inmate releases. Reporters asked the president what the pardons say about assaulting police officers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Among those you pardoned DJ Rodriguez. He drove a stun gun into the neck of a DC police officer who was abducted by the mob that day. He later confessed on video to the FBI and pleaded guilty for his crimes.

Why does he deserve a pardon?

TRUMP: Well I don't know was it a pardon because we're looking at commutes and we're looking at pardons. OK well we'll take a look at everything. At least the cases that we looked at these were people that actually love our country so we thought a pardon would be appropriate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACFARLANE: More now on this from CNN's chief legal affairs correspondent Paula Reid.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TRUMP: We hope they come out tonight frankly.

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In one fell swoop President Trump ended all of the 1600 cases stemming from January 6th.

TRUMP: So this is January 6th and these are the hostages for a pardon.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

TRUMP: Full pardon.

REID (voice-over): Among those pardoned many of the most violent offenders including Patrick McCaughey who assaulted Metro police officer Daniel Hodges with a police shield in the tunnel of the Capitol. Robert Palmer threw a fire extinguisher at a police officer and attacked police with a wooden plank and pole. Kyle Fitzsimons accused of committing five assaults against law enforcement over an approximately five minute span.

Peter Schwartz who threw a folding chair at law enforcement and repeatedly used pepper spray on police. Enrique Tarrio a former leader of the Proud Boys who is convicted on the most serious charge seditious conspiracy for his role in directing the violence that day from afar. He was one and a half years into his 22 year sentence.

Tarrio praising Trump for the pardon in an interview with right-wing host Alex Jones.

ENRIQUE TARRIO, FORMER LEADER OF PROUD BOYS: I had no doubt he was going to release us. He gave me my life back. 22 years is not a short sentence, that's the rest of my life.

REID (voice-over): Trump also commuted the sentences of 14 defendants. Those cases are being reviewed and they still could get pardons including Stewart Rhodes leader of the far-right Oath Keepers who prosecutors said called for a bloody revolution to keep Trump in power. He had his 18 year sentence commuted and was seen here getting out of prison Monday evening.

At least a hundred and eighty of those pardoned Monday by Trump were charged with assault with a deadly weapon. Back in 2021 Trump denounced the protesters.

TRUMP: Those who engaged in the attacks last week will be brought to justice.

REID (voice-over): But on the campaign trail he vowed to pardon them.

TRUMP: I will sign their pardons on day one.

REID (voice-over): Though he and others suggested the pardons would be limited to nonviolent offenders.

His action went farther than many including his GOP allies were expecting.

SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): I just can't agree. It was surprising to me that it was a blanket pardon.

[04:05:00]

REID (voice-over): But perhaps the strongest rebuke came from former officer Michael Fanone who was attacked during the riot.

MICHAEL FANONE, FORMER WASHINGTON, DC POLICE OFFICER: Six individuals who assaulted me as I did my job on January 6th as did hundreds of other law enforcement officers will now walk free.

REID: Now in addition to those who received a commutation or a pardon there's a third group. People who had cases that are still pending. President Trump has ordered that those cases are to be dismissed but a judge has to sign off on each dismissal.

So this could take a little while as some judges will likely they're going to want to go on the record and weigh in on this historic decision.

Paula Reid, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: President Trump threatening more tariffs as soon as next week. This time on China. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We're talking about a tariff of 10 percent on China based on the fact that they're sending fentanyl to Mexico and Canada.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) How soon on those tariffs?

TRUMP: Probably February 1st is the date we're looking at.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACFARLANE: Well those comments coming just a day after Trump threatened 25 percent tariffs on Mexico and Canada during his campaign. He promised tariffs as high as 60 percent on all goods imported from China and if Trump follows through it means he'll be imposing tariffs on America's three largest trading partners.

FOSTER: A Wall Street vote cheering the fact that these tariffs will be delayed until next month. The Dow rose more than 500 points on Tuesday closing above 44,000.

MACFARLANE: Well President Donald Trump is running out a slate of new policies targeting birthright citizenship and mass deportations.

FOSTER: The White House has just made it easier for undocumented immigrants to be arrested in places once considered safe zones like churches and schools.

MACFARLANE: It will allow a fast-track deportation process to be applied to any undocumented immigrants who can't prove they have resided in the U.S. for at least two years.

FOSTER: CNN's Ed Lavandera shows us how one Texas town is coping with the knowledge that members of its community could soon be caught up in raids.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Every school day at Cactus Elementary starts like this.

Moments of patriotism and reflection with a high-energy dose of inspiration from principal T.J. Funderburg.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE CHILD: Why are we here?

CROWD: To learn!

LAVANDERA: You do that every morning?

T.J. FUNDERBURG, PRINCIPAL, CACTUS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL: Yes, sir. When I looked out on the student body this morning, I mean it's quite something to think that we're in the Texas panhandle and that's what your student body looks like.

It's always very eye-opening to people that come here. We've got 13, 14 different languages, all these different cultures represented, and yes we're up here in the heart of the Texas panhandle. Everybody think it'd be farm and ranch and country and kids in cowboy hats and we've got just about a little bit of everything.

LAVANDERA: The population in Cactus, Texas is about 3,000 people, but the diversity is staggering. There's an African restaurant, safari restaurant in Halal Meat, there's an Asian grocery store, there's a Mexican butcher shop, there's a Guatemalan grocery, there's also an Islamic center. What draws so many immigrants and migrants here to a community like this is the work and it is brutal, back-breaking work.

There is a meat processing plant that runs 24 hours a day, there are dairy farms that run non-stop.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): These are the kinds of jobs that the United States economy and food supply rely on every day. It's also the kind of work that only immigrants, by and large, are willing to do.

There are towns like Cactus, Texas all over the country and with President Donald Trump promising to carry out mass deportations, a sense of fear and uncertainty looms over these streets.

LAVANDERA: What are you hearing specifically from people?

ELIZABETH OLIVEROS, IMMIGRATION ATTORNEY: They, well, they're scared. They don't know if they're going to be able to stay here. You know, a lot of them have been here for decades. They've built their lives here, their kids are here, you know, everyone they know is here.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): Elizabeth Oliveros grew up in Cactus, the daughter of immigrants who became citizens and earned their living working in the city's meat processing plant. She went away to college, became a lawyer and moved back to Cactus to work as an immigration attorney.

LAVANDERA: If there were to be mass deportations here in this city, what would happen to it?

OLIVEROS: It'd be quite empty. I think there's a lot of people here that don't have status that keep a lot of the businesses, the smaller businesses around here running. So if immigrants leave, I don't know where they're going to find workers as hard working as some of the immigrants.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): As we walk the streets of Cactus, it was clear that most residents, regardless of their immigration status, didn't want to speak with us on camera and especially didn't want to talk about President Trump's deportation dreams.

[04:10:00]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, I don't like politics. I don't like it.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): The fear among many in this town and other agricultural communities across the country is that vital food production would be paralyzed and communities torn apart. The meat processing plant here says it only hires people authorized to work under different management. In 2006, the plant was raided by immigration authorities. About 300 people suspected of identity theft or being in the country illegally were detained, many of them deported.

Elizabeth Oliveros remembers the day clearly.

OLIVEROS: I was in elementary school and I remember they had to keep us because they didn't know how many of us -- our parents were gone. And a lot of my friends, their parents were gone.

LAVANDERA: Wow.

OLIVEROS: They got deported.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): The Children at Cactus Elementary are mostly oblivious to the political storms brewing outside these school walls. Principal T. J. Funderberg is bracing for whatever comes next.

FUNDERBERG: It's just the unknown that scares me today.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): He says as many as half the kids in the school could have undocumented family members. These are the kinds of places where the reality of mass deportations could play out.

LAVANDERA: To the people who are going to be making these decisions about deportations, whether it's mass deportations, just broad or targeted. What's your message to them?

FUNDERBERG: Just, I mean, come talk to me. Come, come meet these kids. I think, you know, I know there has to be -- there has to be rules. There has to be checks. There has to be balances, but it can't just be paper. This community of people that have come together that are here now from all these different countries, all these different places, we can do amazing things.

LAVANDERA: Residents who lived in Cactus, Texas back in 2006 when those first immigration raids were carried out, say it took the town more than a year to recover. Fast forward nearly 20 years. Cactus is a different place with immigration cases that run the gamut.

People who have legal refugee status are here on green cards, have pending asylum cases and some who are here undocumented. And it really speaks to the challenges that the Trump administration will be facing. And it's not as easy as waving a wand and just carrying out mass deportations.

These are complex and serious questions that the trump administration will be facing.

Ed Lavandera, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MACFARLANE: Meantime, the Mexican government says it will repatriate non Mexican migrants affected by President Trump's renewed remain in Mexico policy on a voluntary basis. The policy requires asylum seekers to wait in Mexico as they apply for asylum in the U.S.

FOSTER: President Claudia Sheinbaum says migrants will be given humanitarian assistance but the government would then return them to their countries of origin according to Mexico's agreements with other Latin American countries.

MACFARLANE: Now historic amount of snow is burying parts of the U.S. Gulf Coast after the region was struck by on Tuesday by a once in a generation winter storm.

FOSTER: Parts of New Orleans were painted white as southern Louisiana braced for the first ever blizzard warning anywhere along the Gulf Coast.

MACFARLANE: The governors of Florida, Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi have declared states of emergency urging people to stay off the icy and hazardous roads. At least nine people are believed to have died due to the dangerous conditions gripping the region.

FOSTER: We had seen those areas covered in snow. Air transport also affected with more than 2,000 flights in and out of the U.S. canceled. Within the limits of caution, however, some are trying to make the most of this historic weather.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMBER HERMAN: Hoping it sticks so we can build a snowman later. That's what I want to do.

DUSTY HERMAN: I'm hoping for the five inches that they're calling for.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I woke up and I just look outside. I'm like, dang, it's like Christmas. Like I'm from Texas. So it don't snow like that down here. It don't snow. It barely even snow. So seeing all this snow is something like new is magical to me.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Snowing. It's a winter wonderland here in Florida. This is so crazy. Like, wow, I'm covered in snow. This is so great.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Seeing the positive there.

Just ahead, details of Israel's large scale military operation in the West Bank. But Prime Minister Netanyahu says aims to quote, eradicate terrorism from the area.

MACFARLANE: And after claiming he could stop the war in Ukraine on his first day in office, President Trump missed the self imposed deadline and may have caused new tension with Vladimir Putin.

FOSTER: And later, around the ice hockey or is it golf? Helps explain how the policies put forward by the trump White House could complicate matters on the global stage.

[04:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MACFARLANE: Welcome back. Israel launched a new military operation in the West Bank days after the ceasefire went into effect in Gaza. The Israeli military killed at least 10 Palestinians, including a child in the city of Jenin on Tuesday.

Operation Iron Wall, as it's being called, is the latest escalation of Israeli violence in the area. And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says it's intended to quote, eradicate terrorism there.

FOSTER: Meanwhile, as the Gaza ceasefire enters its fourth day, hundreds of humanitarian trucks continue to make their way into the war ravaged enclave, bringing much needed aid. Our Jeremy Diamond is in Tel Aviv with the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Three days into the ceasefire in Gaza, the agreement between Israel and Hamas does appear to be holding up. The people of Gaza are finally finding a renewed sense of safety. After more than 15 months of war, hundreds of trucks loaded with much needed aid have begun entering the Gaza Strip every single day.

And Hamas appears poised to release the next four Israeli hostages this coming Saturday. But there are already questions about how long this agreement will actually hold up and whether Israel and Hamas can actually get out of that six week ceasefire phase one of this agreement and into a much more enduring ceasefire, perhaps even an end to the war and the return of all the remaining Israeli hostages.

[04:20:00]

You heard President Trump saying that he is not confident that Israel and Hamas will get to phases two or three of this agreement. And in Israel, there are already voices calling for the Israeli prime minister to go back to the war in Gaza as soon as those six weeks are up.

Now, as the prime minister is facing that pressure largely from the right wing of his government, he and the Israeli military are instead turning their attention to the West Bank, ramping up military operations there. Launching what's being described as a large scale military operation that has already killed at least seven Palestinians.

We've seen in videos from the scene, scenes of armored vehicles and bulldozers entering the city, Israeli military vehicles to be sure. And they are confronting Palestinian militants inside the city of Jenin, including members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, who said that they have been confronting Israeli forces as they enter the city. Now, this operation comes amid the release of Palestinian prisoners

inside the West Bank. And as Israeli settlers have been carrying out attacks against Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank, including setting fire to vehicles there.

Meanwhile, Israel's top general, General Herzi Halevi, he has submitted his resignation to the Israeli prime minister, citing his responsibility for the Israeli military's failures on October 7th. This resignation will be effective early March, and it marks the highest profile resignation in Israel stemming from the failures of October 7th.

And interestingly, he is also saying that he believes a military investigation into the failures of the seventh are not sufficient. He says that there should be some kind of an investigative committee to look into the broad range of failures that led up to the events of that day.

Notably, the Israeli prime minister, who has faced these calls before for a state commission of inquiry, he is continuing to resist those calls. And unlike Halevi, he has not taken responsibility for the failures of October 7th.

Jeremy Diamond, CNN, Tel Aviv.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: The Iraqi parliament has passed a series of laws giving Islamic courts more control over family matters. Activists are especially concerned over one proposal that they say would effectively legalize child marriage.

MACFARLANE: The current law sets 18 as the age of marriage, but the new proposal would let clerics decide based on their interpretation of Islamic law, which in some cases would allow the marriage of girls as young as nine. Conservative Shiite lawmakers say these laws align with Islamic principles and reduce Western influence on Iraqi culture.

Now Donald Trump had insisted that if re-elected, he would end Russia's war in Ukraine on his first day. Well, that deadline has come and gone and the war rages on unchecked.

FOSTER: And the U.S. president was critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin for failing to make a deal to end the fighting. CNN's Nick Paton Walsh reports that Ukrainians are desperate for it to end soon.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Neither Ukraine or Russia got a mention here. But hours later, Trump gave reporters his most stark criticism yet of Putin's war.

TRUMP: He should make a deal. I think he's destroying Russia by not making a deal. I think Russia's going to be in big trouble. You take a look at their economy, you take a look at the inflation in Russia. So I would, I would hope -- I got along with him great. And, you know, I would hope he wants to make a deal.

WALSH (voice-over): He said Europe should almost double its defense spend, and he would meet Putin soon.

Trump's words long awaited and welcomed here in central Kyiv's fog.

WALSH: All the talk of peace deals, the conditions for it of negotiations, somewhat distant and theoretical from the real dangers people in Kyiv here go through every day, the siren sounding so frequently, and this vast sea of loss.

Clearly, so many Ukrainians desperate for peace, but also to see the sacrifice that's made yield some kind of future they can be happy with.

WALSH (voice-over): As the sea of grief spreads to fresh grass, hope is their only option. Nazar is just back from the recruitment office.

Perhaps even in the coming days, he says, Trump should give more information about what he plans to do. But I don't believe in Trump alone. This is such a war that it will not be ended by the actions of one person.

Yulia is here to remember her son, Yevgeny, who died fighting two years ago.

Maybe we'll be given more planes and weapons to win faster, she says. We really hope so. We have great hope that he will help Ukraine.

Ukraine's president delivering a gentle dressing down of his European allies in front of their elite in Switzerland.

[04:25:00]

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: European leaders should remember these battles involving North Korean soldiers are now happening in places geographically closer to Davos than to Pyongyang.

WALSH (voice-over): As his forces fought to hold back Russia here in Toretsk, he reminded the European elite some of its governments were less powerful now than TikTok's algorithm.

Trump baiting Putin. Zelenskyy baiting Europe. Day one and change of the less expected sort is here.

WALSH: There is extraordinary hope voiced by people here in Ukraine, but you get the sense that underneath it, they perhaps feel they have little choice but to try and believe that Donald Trump, with the stark words he had to say frankly about the Kremlin's choices in this war, genuinely wants to put pressure on Moscow. But they also know too that their situation on the front line is deteriorating, frankly, daily, incrementally, yes, but in a steady way that suggests the curve of this war is working not in Kyiv's favor. And I think it is that clock that is ticking in the background that will dictate so many of the choices ahead. But it was remarkable to hear Donald Trump exert rhetorically so much pressure on the Kremlin heads in his first comments since coming to office.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Now, release from prison with no regrets. We'll meet some of the January 6th defendants pardoned by Donald Trump, now freed from jail, of course.

MACFARLANE: And also had a look at the health and wellness influencers who are backing Trump's nominee for health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

[04:30:00]