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CNN This Morning
Chad Wolf is Interviewed about Deportations; Prince Harry Settles Lawsuit; Backlash for January 6th Clemency; Trump Announces Infrastructure Investment. Aired 6:30-7a ET
Aired January 22, 2025 - 06:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:34:25]
KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: All right, welcome back.
One of President Trump's immediate actions to tackle immigration issues now facing a lawsuit. Within hours of retaking the oath of office, the president signed a wave of executive actions, many of them targeting migrants. Among them, a bid to end birthright citizenship. Now, 24 states are suing the administration.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have one message for President Trump. I'll see you in court. It violates our U.S. Constitution.
The president has overstepped his authority by a mile. And we will hold him accountable.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: The Department of Homeland Security is now also changing policy to allow for immigration enforcement raids in more places, like schools and churches, nationwide.
[06:35:07]
In a statement rolling out the guidelines, the department spokesman writes this, quote, "criminals will no longer be able to hide in America's schools and churches to avoid arrest. The Trump administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement, and instead trusts them to use common sense."
The Trump administration's border czar, Tom Homan, says the new actions could now lead to even more arrests.
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TOM HOMAN, TRUMP ADMINISTRATION BORDER CZAR: That means we've got to go to the neighborhood and find them. And we will find them. But when we find him, he may be with others. Others that don't have a criminal conviction but who are in the country illegally. They will be arrested too.
There's going to be more collateral arrests in sanctuary cities because they forced us to go into the community and find - and find the guy we're looking for.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right, joining us now to discuss is Chad Wolf. He's the former acting homeland security secretary under Donald Trump.
Sir, thanks for being on the show today.
CHAD WOLF, FORMER ACTING HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY UNDER TRUMP: Thanks for having me.
HUNT: So, of course, there are some local officials who have reacted to this most recent order. And this is what the Denver mayor had to say. Denver's mayor said, this is - or CNN's reporting, excuse me. Denver's mayor said they wouldn't aid or support ICE operations in the city. They'll take the agency to court if it targets people in sensitive locations, such as schools and churches. The Denver Police Department also has policies in place that prevent officers from asking witnesses or victims of a crime about their immigration status.
We also, of course, heard from Tom Homan, the president's border czar, on this. He spoke about the Denver mayor. I want to play that for you. We'll talk about it on the other side.
Watch.
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TOM HOMAN, TRUMP ADMINISTRATION "BORDER CZAR": Me and the Denver mayor, we agree on one thing, he's willing to go to jail. I'm willing to put him in jail. We're going to enforce the law, period. And they're not going to stop us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: So, is the Trump administration going to target local officials and law enforcement if they don't go along with this?
WOLF: Well, I - here's what I think they're going to do. They're going to continue to enforce the law. They're going to continue to go after criminal aliens and communities and remove those criminal aliens from those communities with all of their power, with all of the authorities that they have.
You know, talking about, you know, this - this change. What we're talking about is targeted enforcement operations. And if you have a criminal aliens that is, you know, near a school, near a church, near a court house. What I think the Trump administration is saying is that it's OK to arrest that individual, to remove them out of that community, to remove them out of that situation and - and deport them.
So, I think it's important - again, we're not talking about raids here, we're not talking about just wondering through neighborhoods. That's not how ICE conducts their operations. They're targeted operations. They will remove those targets from communities to ensure that those communities are safer.
HUNT: Sir, what onus does this put on people in those institutions who may be aware of the immigration status of their students or their parishioners? Does this place a burden on teachers and clergy?
WOLF: No, it places no burden on that. Again, ICE doesn't conduct operations by talking to teachers and by talking to others in the community. They have information. They have a targeting center where they - they understand where these individuals are.
Again, the majority of these individuals that we're talking about have come into the country illegally. They've committed another crime here in the United States. Sanctuary jurisdictions have released them from jail. And so, ICE has to go into these communities and find these individuals.
So, they have ways to understand who they are, and they will surveil them and target them. They're not looking to - to reach out to pastors or to teachers to verify immigration status. That's not how the system works.
HUNT: Sir, one of the early executive orders we saw from President Trump looks at using military resources for functionally detention camps, for migrants who crossed the border. It - as - as they need a place to hold them. This is actually something that the Biden administration looked at doing early in Biden's term. And there was, in fact, some resistance from the Pentagon considering the scale of resources that would need to be applied, that the amount of Pentagon money that would need to go toward it.
How - how does the Trump administration plan to solve that problem? And from your time in the department, I mean, what do you know about how feasible something like that is?
WOLF: Well, here's what I would say is, the Biden administration did exactly this. They didn't use it - do it using DOD resources, but they built any number of what we call soft sided facilities outside of El Paso, in south Texas and elsewhere to house the overwhelming number of migrants that are coming in. I think what the Trump administration is looking at is not only, what do you do with those facilities, but are there additional facilities that the Department of Defense can help either ascertain or build on - on DOD property and elsewhere?
[06:40:01]
And so, it's going to be a challenge.
Obviously, that national emergency that the president issued helps to free up some of those resources. But a lot of these individuals that are going to be removed from the country and deported need to be put in some type of facility in a what we call a detention bed, in order to get onto the flight line to be removed from the country. So, there's going to be a need for additional resources and additional detention capability.
HUNT: All right, Chad Wolf for us this morning. Thanks very much for joining us, sir. I appreciate your time.
WOLF: All right. Thank you.
HUNT: All right, this just in, Prince Harry is now settling his long running lawsuit against "The Sun" newspaper. The trial, the fight between the British royal and the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper group, was due to begin today. Harry was suing, claiming the paper violated his privacy with their phone hacking scheme. But now this last-minute settlement has avoided the trial. The paper agreeing to pay substantial damages and is offering a, quote, "unequivocal apology," end quote, to Prince Harry. His lawyer issuing a statement after the settlement.
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DAVID SHERBORNE, PRINCE HARRY'S LAWYER: News U.K. is finally held to account for its illegal actions and its blatant disregard for the law.
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HUNT: CNN's Max Foster joins us live now from London.
Max, I'm going to refrain from commenting on the clothes that barristers wear in the U.K., which, of course, you all are very familiar with.
MAX FOSTER, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: (INAUDIBLE).
HUNT: But which are jarring to American eyes.
Max, I got to say, I'm really surprised by this. I mean this settlement had been on the table for a while, no. I mean, why did he do this now?
FOSTER: Yes, it's gone on for years. So, this is a wider battle that Prince Harry has with the British tabloid newspapers and their invasions of privacy. This was probably the big one because it has essentially instigated a very rare apology from Rupert Murdoch's media empire. And Rupert Murdoch is seen as one of the people who really shaped British media, tabloid media culture. And Harry's had a particular issue with that growing up. So, he's not just received an apology for himself, also an apology for the way that his mother, Princess Diana, was also treated as she was growing up. He very much saw this as a battle for people that don't have a voice, that can't afford to carry out these cases.
There are people asking questions about how settling out of court actually squares with what he wanted from this, which was his day in court and accountability from the people at the top of the organization, not necessarily the reporters, but the - the culture, the fact that people who ran these newspapers knew what was happening beneath them and should take responsibility for that. But civil cases are designed to be settled out of court. That's the
way they operate. And certainly you heard there from David Sherborne, his barrister, that they see this as an unequivocal victory.
HUNT: Yes.
FOSTER: They feel they have got accountability and they now want the police to investigate as well.
HUNT: Max, can I ask you, is there any tie at all between this settlement, this decision to put this down, and the fact that Donald Trump has just taken office? Murdoch owns Fox News here in the United States. And there has been some back and forth between Harry and the now president's camp around Harry - Harry's immigration status, living here in the United States.
FOSTER: No. I mean, I've had meetings with his lawyers. That's never been a factor. And Harry's not the sort of character, I don't think, that would settle on those grounds because this has, in many ways, been a point of principle for him. I think he was effectively offered a deal that he couldn't refuse. There are reports, we're talking about eight figure settlement here. His lawyers haven't denied that. And, as I say, these cases are meant to be settled out of court. And he got the apology that he wanted from Rupert Murdoch's empire.
And this is a local case. It's not about all of Rupert Murdoch's interests around the world.
HUNT: Sure.
FOSTER: So, particularly targeting Rebekah Brooks, who is Rupert Murdoch's top henchperson, as it were, in the U.K. She was never going to appear in court. That - he wanted her to take responsibility for knowing what was going on and not allowing her to deny that. And he feels he's got all of that in the statement that he got from News Group newspapers, which is the Rupert Murdoch arm here.
HUNT: All right, Max Foster for us this morning. Sir, lovely to have you on twice in our two hours. Thank you for being here.
FOSTER: Lovely to be here.
HUNT: I appreciate it.
All right, still ahead here on CNN THIS MORNING, in the hours following their pardons, hundreds of January 6th rioters now out of prison. What they're saying about their newfound freedom and their actions that landed them behind bars in the first place.
Plus, a major national initiative to promote artificial intelligence unveiled at the White House.
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[06:49:00] HUNT: Quote, "everyone should be released," end quote. That is what one January 6th defendant is saying after he got out of jail after President Trump issued pardons and commutations this week for more than a thousand people who had been charged in the attack on the Capitol.
CNN's Donie O'Sullivan has more.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And we're - you're a true patriot.
RACHEL POWELL, PARDONED JANUARY 6 DEFENDANT: I'm so glad you're here.
I don't even know what to feel. I mean, I guess I should feel joy. I just - I - maybe I'm just shocked.
DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The end of a long road for Rachel Powell, pardoned by President Trump and released Tuesday from a jail here in Washington, D.C. Rachel became known as the pink hat lady when footage emerged of her breaking a window at the Capitol with an ice axe during the January 6th attack.
A mom to eight and a grandmother to seven, I interviewed Rachel before she began what was supposed to be a year's long prison sentence last year.
POWELL: How did I have time to plan an insurrection when my life is busy like this?
O'SULLIVAN (voice over): On her release on Tuesday, she was met by activists who gave her new clothes, new boots and a new pink hat.
[06:50:00]
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Whoo, glory! Hallelujah! Thank you, Lord!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This man came from the Philadelphia jail. He got out at 3:00 a.m. That doesn't make sense. He's wearing prison shoes and Philadelphia's finest prison gear.
O'SULLIVAN (voice over): Pardoned January 6ers from elsewhere began arriving in Washington, like William Patrick Sarsfield III, who was convicted of a felony offense of obstruction of law enforcement during a civil disorder.
WILLIAM SARSFIELD III, PARDONED JANUARY 6 DEFENDANT: Well, I was - heard through different apps and different programs and different phone calls from people that we still had brothers and sisters that were still locked up and haven't been released. And being somebody that's been in D.C., that everybody should be released. If it's a pardon for J 6ers, it's for all of us.
O'SULLIVAN: You got out of prison last night?
ROBERT MORSS, PARDONED JANUARY 6 DEFENDANT: Well, I was - I was locked up for three and a half years and I was taken to the halfway house on August 29th.
O'SULLIVAN (voice over): Robert Morss says he was released from a halfway house in Pittsburgh late last night, and came to D.C. to celebrate.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Back up.
O'SULLIVAN (voice over): Morss, a former Army Ranger, was found guilty of assaulting police officers, among other crimes, on January 6th.
MORSS: I had no intention of going anywhere near the Capitol that day. That's how crazy this got. So, a lot of people were taken advantage of, and we were lured into a lobster trap that January 6th was designed to be.
O'SULLIVAN: In terms of personal responsibility, do you take - I mean do you regret -
MORSS: Completely. Without a doubt. I said that in my sentencing speech. I said the words, Donald Trump did not force me or coerce me to do what I did that day. I did it on my own accord.
O'SULLIVAN: What's your message to people watching this who say, she shouldn't have been pardoned. None of these people should have got out of prison. They're criminals.
POWELL: Yes. I - OK, you know what, it's time to stop worrying about that and move forward in this country.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HUNT: Pretty remarkable to hear directly from those people, Kristen Soltis Anderson, as well as to, you know, have it underscored, as Donie did there, the crime that someone is being pardoned for, watching her with the axe at the Capitol window.
Again, I mean, one of the things I think we should touch on here is the - kind of the blanket and sweeping nature of this. And, you know, as we talk about the politics, you know, J.D. Vance, in the days before this happened, had been on the air saying, well, obviously, the violent people will not be pardoned. It will be people who describe being swept up in the violence as one of those people did.
"Axios" reporting this morning that basically how this played out was, quote, "as Trump's team wrestled with the issue, Trump just said, f it, release them all, an adviser familiar with the discussions told Axios' Marc Caputo." That seems like President Trump's willingness to, you know, there's one set of political instincts in thinking about how this should have been handled, and then there's President Trump's not caring about it.
KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Which is a familiar pattern, is it not? I mean the idea that his advisers are around him saying, Mr. President, maybe consider doing x, y, z. And then he says, nope, I'm the president. I can do it. Let's do it. I mean this is - this is not the first. This is not the last time that
we will see Donald Trump approach an issue where he goes, I'm the guy in charge. I can do what I want.
ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: No.
ANDERSON: I do wonder how much - the pardons in and of themselves, again, I don't imagine will be popular and will likely fade from the public consciousness over time as other issues, I'm sure before the end of the week we will have moved on to some other thing that people will go, oh my gosh, this is so outrageous!
But what I do wonder is for these folks who have been released, if they do something again, if there's a further continuation of - of political violence in this country, does this then come back to sort of haunt people? Oh, no, we've begun excusing political violence as long as it's done by my side, people I think are righteous.
WILLIAMS: And -
HUNT: So - one second. I - to that - to that very point, Enrique Tarrio, who was pardoned, full pardon, the head of the Proud Boys, former head of the Proud Boys, had this to say upon his release.
Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ENRIQUE TARRIO: You know, I'm happy that the president's focusing, not on retribution and focusing on success. But I will tell you that I - I'm not going to play by those rules. The people who did this, they need to feel the heat. They need to be put behind bars, and they need to be prosecuted.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Elliot Williams.
WILLIAMS: So, yes, and assume part of - even if these pardons are disgraceful or something that much of the public will not agree, but they were a perfectly valid exercise of the pardon power. And I would go as far as to say the problem is the pardon power. Trump was just the symptom of it.
Someone called me yesterday and asked, could a president prospectively pardon people for crimes that are committed between today and, say, January 20, 2029? And I said, sure, maybe, because it hasn't been tested yet. It's probably the only power in American government that has no limitations on it. And if people are going to be upset at how presidents exercise power - and this goes back to a century of bad pardons, you know, perhaps Congress ought to get together and refine the pardon power or even amend the Constitution to limit it somewhat.
[06:55:01]
HUNT: Stephen Collinson, the big picture of whether this continues to be something, right, like, there are Republicans in the House and Senate who were saying, great, we can leave this behind us now. Like, I might not like this, but this is behind us. Enrique Tarrio seems to be suggesting, that is not behind me. What does that mean in the long run?
STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN POLITICS SENIOR REPORTER: Yes, and what happens the next time the president says, you know, stand back and stand by? Does that incite violence?
But I think what he is taking the message from is that this election was made by many Democrats as a referendum on January the 6th. And while it's very traumatic for a lot of people in Washington and for a bunch of Democrats, millions of conservatives are ready to move on and they don't see it as a impediment to Trump being in the White House. And that's just a fact. And it tells us where we are as a country.
WILLIAMS: One really quick point in response to Kristen.
You know, it's interesting, now that folks have been pardoned, there's the question of, well, if one of these guys goes out and robs a 7- Eleven, what happens there? You know, was this crime invited?
I think the bigger question, and, frankly, the question for the president is, what happens if one of these folks gets out and then commits another election or fraud-related crime? Do they get pardoned again? Or have - have we now invited this entire community of 1,500 or so people to engage in the same kind of conduct in the future that they got convicted.
COLLINSON: Or even a violent crime.
WILLIAMS: Or even - right. I mean it's two different questions, right? It's - any time you let somebody out of prison, are you incentivizing them, committing another violent crime? But this particular class of thing that they were - that they were prosecuted for, what - what happens?
HYMA MOORE, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF TO DNC CHAIR JAMIE HARRISON: And I still think this is good politics for the president. I think this is sort of a promise made, promises kept sort of situation. So, for his base, for those who sent him back to D.C., this is a win for them. And so, I think he did the thing that he was supposed to do here.
HUNT: All right, let's turn back now to this story. The self- proclaimed builder president has returned.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, FORMER WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY (June 5, 2017): Infrastructure week continues with the president's visit to Cincinnati, Ohio.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (June 7, 2017): It was supposed to be infrastructure week.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN CORRESPONDENT (February 14, 2018): Well, it is infrastructure week at the White House.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR (May 22, 2019): It is worth noting it is infrastructure week somewhere.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: You might remember that running joke from President Donald Trump's first term. That was a phrase used to describe his perpetual promise of an infrastructure plan that did always seem to get delayed.
Now, President Trump has made the first big infrastructure announcement of his second term, declaring that three top tech firms will work together to pour up to $500 billion into a new company called Stargate to expand the country's artificial intelligence infrastructure.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Beginning immediately, Stargate will be building the physical and virtual infrastructure to power the next generation of advancements in AI. And this will include the construction of colossal data centers. Very, very massive structures.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Stephen Collinson, there does seem to be some question about where this money is coming from. If it, you know, totally exists. But again, another opportunity for the president to bring those three CEOs, you know, tech leaders up on stage and say this.
Now, I will say, the national security apparatus says this is a big priority.
COLLINSON: Right. And the rule of thumb with a lot of these announcements is to look back in a years' time and see if they actually did deliver what they were supposed to deliver. There were some instances in the first term where this didn't take place.
But I think the bigger question here, and it's going to be a central one of this administration, is it - to what extent is it the right thing to do to get all these massive tech oligarchs in the middle of the administration, helping push forward U.S. capability in this area, in technology, in defense, to compete with China, specifically. But what extent does that bring massive conflicts of interest, corruption, completely wipe away all the ethical constraints we've ever understood about the presidency? That's a fault line that's going to be tested here.
ANDERSON: I think this is - I think this is great because I think the fact that we're talking about it as AI infrastructure is so important. So many times we think of these tech issues as something that's about a line of code, right? The AI revolution is about building stuff, building data centers, places to house these GPUs. It's about building the power that we're going to need to keep these centers running, keep them cool. This is not just a tech issue, it is an infrastructure issue. And so I'm so glad to see this. I think this is an unvarnished win for them.
HUNT: Yes. It's also a national security issue, Elliot Williams.
WILLIAMS: Oh, yes, absolutely. And, you know, to your point, it's jobs. It's - it's technology. It's development. Again, it's this question of - and, you know, we can talk about this on another show, Kristen. But, you know, I'd be genuinely curious about how Republican voters, or even not Republican voters, see this idea of billionaires with the former - with the current president, right? It's - this is a new form of populism. And I'm just curious as to how it looks - look (INAUDIBLE).
COLLINSON: Yes.
HUNT: Quickly.
ANDERSON: Yes, I think he's bringing a bunch of really successful people who are doing great things for the country into the White House and saying, let's do more of them.
WILLIAMS: Yes.
ANDERSON: I think as long as the things he's doing are things that people say, I see benefit for myself in this, I think it doesn't matter how rich the people are he's standing with.
[07:00:01]
WILLIAMS: Yes.
COLLINSON: Yes.
MOORE: I mean, I think, look, it could work. And I think Democrats, contrary to popular belief, want a great America as well.
I do think that one of the things that he's got to think about over the next couple days, couple weeks is lowering costs, inflation, housing, health care, child care, school costs. That is still the primary reason that people (INAUDIBLE) Washington, D.C. So, all this anti-woke rhetoric is good for the base, but people still want to see their costs go down.
HUNT: Fair enough.
All right, guys, thanks very much for joining us this morning. Great to see all of you.
Thanks to all of you at home for joining us as well. I'm Kasie Hunt. Don't go anywhere. "CNN NEWS CENTRAL" starts right now.