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ICE Arrests More than 3,500 Since Inauguration Day; DOJ Fires Prosecutors; DeepSeek Sends Shockwaves Through Markets. Aired 6:30-7a ET
Aired January 28, 2025 - 06:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[06:33:21]
KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN ANCHOR: More than 3,500 immigrants have already been rounded up in the first week of the Trump administration, with the latest raids being conducted in Chicago, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Diego, Denver and Miami.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOM HOMAN, TRUMP ADMINISTRATION "BORDER CZAR": So, this this operation right now is concentrating on public safety threats and national security threats throughout the country. We're focused on - we're focused on criminals. But I think you and I discussed before, but in sanctuary cities you're going to see a higher number of collateral arrests.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAUSCHE: CNN's Ed Lavandera has more on the president's aggressive immigration crackdown.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The Trump administration is celebrating images of immigration officers fanning out across the country, arresting undocumented migrants. The president's supporters call it a new day in controlling the U.S. southern border.
REP. TONY GONZALES (R-TX): I think - what I've seen in the first week has been very positive as far as deporting people that deserve to be deported. These convicted criminal aliens need to go home.
LAVANDERA (voice over): The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, or ICE, says in the last five days it has arrested an average of 710 people a day who will face deportation. In Colorado, the Drug Enforcement Administration says nearly 50 people suspected of being undocumented gang members were taken into custody Sunday. ICE officials say they carried out enhanced targeted operations in Chicago searching for criminal immigrants.
In Georgia, cameras recorded ICE agents arresting a Honduran man in his 50s at his home. The man's family says he is a construction worker with no criminal record, other than a ticket for driving without a license.
[06:35:02]
While the Trump administration is touting its deportation efforts, critics say not much has really changed in Trump's first week from the Biden era. In fiscal year 2023, the Biden administration deported about 390 people a day, according to ICE data. That jumped to 743 a day in 2024.
REP. VERONICA ESCOBAR (D-TX): What the Trump administration is doing right now is - is performative. A form of propaganda so that he can tell his base, look, I'm doing exactly what I told you I was going to do.
LAVANDERA (voice over): The Trump administration is also boosting the military presence along the southern border. More than 1,500 troops have been brought in and will be deployed along various points on the border. Texas Governor Greg Abbott is also bringing in 400 additional National Guard soldiers to work alongside Border Patrol agents.
HOMAN: They're down there to create a secure border and - and lock that border down. And - and DOD's helped administrations before, but not at this level. So, it's a force multiplier, and it's - it's - it's sending a strong signal to the world, our border's closed.
LAVANDERA (voice over): Tom Homan is the Trump administration's border czar, and he's vowing more arrests to come, which is triggering a sense of fear among immigrant communities across the country, especially among farm workers.
TERESA ROMERO, PRESIDENT, UNITED FARM WORKERS: Right now farm workers are not even opening their doors to anybody who knock on their doors because they are afraid that it's going to be somebody who's going to take you, who's going to separate him from the family. So, this is the worst that I personally have seen in many years.
LAVANDERA: There have been some operational changes here on the ground along the U.S. southern border. Military aircraft are now being used to carry out deportations, repatriating undocumented immigrants back to their home countries, as well as more cooperation, interagency cooperation in terms of being able to arrest undocumented immigrants around the country. So, we have seen those changes.
But the question is, just how long will this be sustainable?
Ed Lavandera, CNN, El Paso, Texas.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TAUSCHE: Our thanks to Ed for that reporting.
Let's bring back our panel here in studio.
Alex, we just saw some of the data about how these enforcement actions have been ramping up in the new administration. ICE has been posting daily data about how many arrests they're conducting. It was more than 1,100 yesterday, up from 956 on Sunday. And these are measures that do have large support from the American public. Do you think that this is sustainable to continue ramping this up, or do you think that there's going to be an initial burst and then it's going to settle out?
ALEX THOMPSON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Oh, no, I think we're actually going to see it ramp up even more from where it is. And honestly, they would be even higher if they had the resources to do it right now.
One really interesting sort of wedge in the early administration is, Tom Homan, who you saw there, he really wants them to pass an initial bill just focused on the border. And he's been very public saying, listen, we need more money now because we need to hire ICE officers, everything else.
I think in his ideal scenario, like you would have two, three, four, five times this number. And it'll be really interesting to see what happens in the next month.
TAUSCHE: We've talked about some of the reverberations in the migrant communities. And Tom Homan, the border czar that we just heard from, has suggested that there will be collateral arrests, people that they're not necessarily targeting. They get arrested alongside people who are undocumented or convicted of a crime. And that's one key difference from the way that the Obama and Biden administrations approached immigration.
I want to play a sound bite from President Obama's former ICE director, who was on CNN earlier this week, about that key difference, and then get your reaction.
Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN SANDWEG, FORMER ACTING DIRECTOR OF ICE: In the Biden administration or Obama administration, you don't take those people into custody unless they also pose a threat to public safety, you know, have a criminal conviction or there's some other, you know, they're a gang member or something of that nature. Under the Trump administration, they've been very open that they're going to arrest everybody in the house. That does drive up the number of arrests. But, of course, those are individuals who really don't have a nexus to public safety.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAUSCHE: So the Trump officials saying, this is a byproduct of what is happening, but they're not apologetic about it?
EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: No. And Tom Homan, I remember an interview he did with - with "60 Minutes," right before the election, when he was asked about this and he said, yes, that's what's going to happen. And so, this is another example of the Trump campaign, the president himself saying what he would do if he was elected and then carrying it out. We have seen that over the course of this week. Now, I think the question is, what happens when these continue, when
these ramp up? Are we going to see the things that had been talked about of deputizing lots of law enforcement, National Guard to go in. The path was cleared last week for going into churches and schools. That gets to a different place. I don't think you'd find most Americans who would say deporting gang members who are in the country illegally is a bad thing, and it's - it's where it goes after the first week and - and what the reaction is then.
[06:40:01]
TAUSCHE: But, Kate, the bet that the Trump team is making is that actions will speak louder than words. And I remember during the Biden administration being in the press briefing room and have DHS Secretary Mayorkas there and saying, in no uncertain terms to migrants, do not come.
KATE BEDINGFIELD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.
TAUSCHE: Do not come. The border is not open. But that message was never heeded.
BEDINGFIELD: Yes. Look, I think Congresswoman Escobar, as we saw in that package, is right, there is a huge performative element to this. They are trying to send the signal that the border is closed, that you shouldn't come. They're trying to send a signal to the American people that they're delivering on what, you know, they believe that Trump was elected to do.
You know, I do think there will - there will be, over the course of time, I think there will probably be some blowback. If you look back at 2020 and 2021, family separation was a huge political liability for Trump. Even people who said they wanted more robust immigration enforcement were outraged and horrified by the - by the process of family separation. So, I think, as more and more - as we get more and more of these images of people who, you know, who - who as - as that gentleman was saying, don't have a nexus to national security being swept up, I think there will be some blowback.
I also think, you know, where is the business community going to go? Like, there will be a moment if - where the business community will start to say, look, this is not good. This is not good for our economy. This is not, you know, this is negatively impacting our bottom line.
So, I don't think that Trump is going to have the political wind at his back in the way that he does right now, forever.
TAUSCHE: Yes.
BRAD TODD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: We'll see.
TAUSCHE: Final word.
TODD: Republicans have never been more popular among Latinos than it - than we are right now, right? At this very moment with the strongest enforcement - immigration enforcement highest on the list, that's when Republican strength is highest in the border communities that are on the southwestern side of the United States. So, we'll see.
Eighty-three percent of Americans support deporting criminal illegal aliens. This was something Barack Obama focused on. Democrats used to be for this, and then Joe Biden let in 10 million people, 10 million people in four years. That's why we are where we are. I think Donald Trump's immigration policy is going to be popular longer than you may think.
BEDINGFIELD: We were also - let's not forget, I got to - we were post - we were post Covid in a time where there was a massive influx of people after the - essentially the hemisphere had been shut down due to Covid. So - so throwing out numbers without that context, I think, is -
TODD: But we had a -
BEDINGFIELD: Is a little - is a little misleading.
TODD: But - but Biden did 11 executive orders in the first three months that softened the border. Like, it was on purpose that we did this. He was trying to undo Trump's strong border policies. We saw the results.
TAUSCHE: And we also had companies saying that they couldn't find the workers that they needed.
BEDINGFIELD: Yes, exactly.
TAUSCHE: So, I think where the business community is right now will be very important and very telling.
Still ahead on CNN THIS MORNING, a Chinese tech startup is shaking up the stock market. How the new AI model called DeepSeek could change the tech industry.
Plus, Donald Trump's purge at the Department of Justice taking aim at prosecutors who pushed cases against him. Some Trump allies call it payback.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (March 4, 2023): For those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution. I am your retribution.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:47:21]
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (November 18, 2022): The gravest threats to our civilization are not from abroad, but from within. None is greater than the weaponization of the justice system, the FBI and the DOJ. We must conduct a top to bottom overhaul to clean out the festering rot and corruption of Washington, D.C.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAUSCHE: President Donald Trump making good on a promise he first made when he announced his second presidential bid just over two years ago. Trump's Justice Department yesterday firing more than a dozen prosecutors who worked on the two federal criminal cases against him. It comes amid a flurry of restructuring and just a week after the president pardoned more than 1,000 January 6th rioters the department worked to convict. Some employees at the DOJ telling "Politico," quote, "it feels like a non-violent war. Nothing that happened during the first Trump administration came anywhere close to this." Another saying, quote, "it's got to be among the most demoralizing moments in the history of the Department of Justice." And calling it a, quote, "wholesale politically inspired demolition."
Trump's allies, however, say none of this should be surprising.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NEWT GINGRICH (R), FORMER HOUSE SPEAKER: That would be kind of like maybe there will be a little payback. That's - that's just human.
SEN. MIKE ROUNDS (R-SD): I would suspect that if you were in his position and you had been prosecuted, you probably would do the same thing, or at least you'd seriously consider it.
The fact that he has actually pulled the trigger is news to me. But once again, it would not surprise me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAUSCHE: Joining me now is former federal prosecutor Jennifer Rodgers. She is now a CNN legal analyst.
Jennifer, I want to get your reaction first to what the acting attorney general said in his letter announcing some of these firings, suggesting that the people who were involved in the prosecution of the president, in his view, could not be trusted.
What message does that send?
JENNIFER RODGERS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, it's a terrible message. I mean, the president is not supposed to direct the activities of the Department of Justice. The notion that he has policies and priorities that he wants the Justice Department to act on is not something that historically has been a thing at the Justice Department, right? Criminal cases are supposed to be brought based on evidence. They're supposed to be based on the law. They're not supposed to be based on the whims and the retribution desires of the president. So, just the notion that they are being fired, I mean, I guess at least they were upfront about it that they were fired because they had displeased the president in prosecuting him, but that doesn't make it legitimate. It doesn't make it right. And I think the notion that it's demoralizing and really, really damaging to the Department of Justice going forward is true. [06:50:08]
TAUSCHE: Pam Bondi, who's nominated to become the attorney general, she'll be voted on by the Senate Judiciary Committee in just a couple days, she said in 2023 essentially that a second Trump term would pursue this type of retribution. But then more recently, in her confirmation hearing, she said that - that the department would not be politicized.
Do you think that in some sense, doing this now provides political cover for her before she gets installed there?
RODGERS: I think it does. I think it does. I mean she knows that she can say one thing when she's a Trump advocate, but when she's going to be the attorney general, she needs to say the right thing. And she knows, of course, that the right thing is not to fire people just because they worked on the Trump cases. So, she's saying the right thing in her confirmation hearings. And the fact that this purge has happened before she was confirmed, I think you're exactly right about the timing, it's been done so that she doesn't have to do it herself at her boss' direction as soon as she takes the helm.
TAUSCHE: And there's been the focus on these handful of officials who were involved with the prosecution of January 6th rioters, as well as the classified documents case. But then the morale more broadly within the department has caused an exodus that some legal recruiters say that they have not seen ever in their time in the industry. And I'm wondering what practical effects you think that ultimately has for national security and for the department moving forward.
RODGERS: Well, when there are not enough people to prosecute the crimes that are happening, including very important national security matters, then they don't get done or they don't get done well. And there's no question that a lot of prosecutors understood that Trump two would be problematic at the Justice Department, that he would likely have an attorney general who would do his bidding, and that that might result in inappropriate and even illegal prosecutions. So, I think a lot of people probably hit the road just when he got elected.
But now that he actually has reached into the Justice Department to purge people without good reason, likely illegally, who were just doing their jobs, I think people are even more afraid that either they'll be asked to do inappropriate things, or they'll be fired for just doing their jobs. And so, I think it - it puts a chilling effect on the department. And when people leave, there aren't enough people to do the work, the American people suffer.
TAUSCHE: And how tall is the order for Bondi once she takes the job and is confirmed, and her deputy, Todd Blanche, and other senior officials at the department as they try to restock some of those ranks?
RODGERS: It's going to be tough. I mean the best prosecutors, the best lawyers in the country are not going to want to work for this administration. You know, they're not going to want to do what a Trump Justice Department is going to be asked to do. So, I think it's going to be very challenging for them to get the best people, and even people at all, to be honest, to - to work in this department. And there's a lot of important work every day that's not at all political, that everyone would agree these are cases that should be prosecuted. But when you don't have the bodies there to actually do the work, they don't get done. So that's - that's part of my fear that there just won't be enough people to - to actually do the work that needs to be done every day.
TAUSCHE: Well, Republican allies of Trump say he has the authority and he is simply exercising it. We will see what the ramifications are.
Jennifer Rodgers, we appreciate your time. Thank you.
RODGERS: Thank you.
TAUSCHE: Fifty-three minutes past the hour. Here is your morning roundup.
Protesters lighting fires and demonstrating outside the U.S. embassy in Kinshasa. Reuters reports that a number of embassies in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have come under attack this morning. The unrest coming as thousands flee fighting between the Congolese military and rebels in the nation's east.
President Trump continues to lash out at California's leaders over the recent wildfires in Los Angeles. In a Truth Social post late last night, the president announcing in a statement, quote, "the United States military just entered the great state of California," adding the military, quote, "turned on the water." The California's Department of Water Resources is pushing back, issuing their own statement which says, quote, "the military did not enter California. The federal government restarted federal water pumps after they were offline for maintenance for three days. State water supplies in southern California remain plentiful."
And new this morning, the White House pressing pause on all federal grants and loans. It's a decision that could impact trillions of dollars in federal assistance to communities across the country. An internal memo, a copy of which was obtained by CNN, specifies that the pause should not impact Social Security and Medicare.
The sudden rise of a new Chinese tech startup is shaking up the stock market and our understanding of artificial intelligence. On Monday, a new AI model by DeepSeek burst onto the scene when it was revealed to be much more advanced than previously thought.
[06:55:06]
The news sent the stock prices for some tech giants tumbling. "The Wall Street Journal" editorial board writing this about the new Chinese competitor, saying, quote, "more startling, DeepSeek required far fewer chips to train than other advanced AI models and thus cost only an estimated $5.6 million to develop. Other advanced models cost in the neighborhood of $1 billion. Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen called it AI's Sputnik moment, and he may be right," end quote. But President Trump seems to view the new competition as a potential
positive.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is very unusual when you hear a DeepSeek, when you hear somebody - somebody come up with something. We always have the ideas. We're always first. So, I would say, that's a positive. That could be very much a positive development. So, instead of spending billions and billions, you'll spend less and you'll come up with hopefully the same solution.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAUSCHE: My panel is back.
Has anyone actually tried DeepSeek?
DOVERE: No.
TAUSCHE: No. OK. I haven't either.
BEDINGFIELD: No.
TAUSCHE: I mean I think there's a general wariness of entering your data into a Chinese search engine to see what it - what it populates.
DOVERE: Yes.
TAUSCHE: That being said, the fact that - that Beijing was able to create this with far less money, less advanced chips. Alex, what does it say about the export controls policy that the Biden administration had been pursuing to try to keep a lot of this technology from being developed?
THOMPSON: Well, you're going to see all the tech and AI companies be making a version of the argument you just said. They're going to be like, we need more government funding, more government help, not government prosecutions or investigations into anti-trust stuff, because we need to be able to compete with China.
TAUSCHE: Marc Andreessen, though, has been saying that the government should not be in the business of creating winners and losers, deciding who gets to succeed in this arena, but how does that actually work in practice?
BEDINGFIELD: Well, I think this - well, I - this is a - this seems like a universe where public private partnership is going to be critical. I think this is - this is going to be a technology that's going to be infused in - in almost everything that we do as we look 10 years, 20 years, 50 years down the line. I think it's sort of inconceivable to think that the government is not going to have a hand in trying to ensure that, you know, Americans privacy is protected, that, you know, jobs are protected.
So - but it is a space where government and the private sector do have to work hand in hand. Private sector will be - clearly be the engine, the predominant engine of innovation on this. And if this is a moment that spurs innovation in the United States on AI, then then, yes, that's a good thing.
But I think the - the point that you raised at the top here, that this is not just a question of, is the United States, you know, advancing an economic engine. It's also, in the information space, do we want the Chinese government to have control of the, you know, to use Ted Stevens' term, the tubes that provide information to people? I mean there's - there's the economic piece -
TAUSCHE: Yes.
BEDINGFIELD: And then there's also the information piece. It's very fraught.
TAUSCHE: Brad -
DOVERE: I would also say -
TAUSCHE: Yes.
DOVERE: Like we have a situation where we have been told by a lot of the CEOs of these companies, this is where the economy is. And then look what happened yesterday. In the last hour you said Nvidia had lost half a trillion dollars in its value yesterday. It does seem like this would be, in other conceptions, a little bit of a stock market bubble.
TODD: We have a China problem. And it's going to - disentangling our strategic industries like AI from China is going to be very problematic. We have to do it. But it's - maybe we can do it in a bipartisan way. It's a thing where Republicans and Democrats actually have some agreement.
TAUSCHE: And wither (ph) Trump's AI team. He's perhaps the first president to actually have an AI and cryptocurrency czar. He has a kitchen cabinet of sorts that Marc Andreessen and - and other valley luminaries are a part of. So, what do you sense that they're suggesting to him?
TODD: Well, I think, you know, Trump likes competition. So, in some ways he values competition from China. But he also is very wary of China and sees it as the enemy I think that in ways that some of his predecessors did not. That's going to be put to the test, though, and it's going to be - it's going to be complicated and there are going to be prices to pay.
DOVERE: It's also a moment where you think about what truth is and how that goes. You see some of the early interactions with the - the Chinese model yesterday where people were trying to get what - asking what happened in Tiananmen Square. And one of the responses that I saw that it spit out was, well, there's what factually happened, but then I have to follow the guidelines of what I'm allowed to tell you. And that, you know, it seems like, oh, it's a funny thing that people do (ph). But when you think about what that means in a bigger sense, as AI is populating more of the information that is being put out and that people in America and beyond are getting, that is actually quite frightening. I think we need to think about the consequences.
TODD: This could be a tip of an iceberg, though, that unites America's creator class with its investor class and its security class. There are not many issues that pull those people together.
BEDINGFIELD: It's true.
TAUSCHE: Alex, final word.
THOMPSON: The creator class - a lot of that creator class, though, is on TikTok, right? And Trump has some internal contradictions on his China policy. You said he has been one of the, you know, has changed the politics of China, but also, you know, he - just last week he was like, well, TikTok's fine.
[07:00:04]
You know, our phones are made there too. Isn't that OK?
TAUSCHE: Yes.
TODD: Every American's going to go through this push pull. But in the end we have to disengage.
TAUSCHE: And last night Trump suggested that perhaps Microsoft could buy TikTok. I'm old enough to remember when he tried to do that in 2020 and then scrapped the deal. So, anyway, we shall see how that ends up playing out.
Thank you so much to my panel today, Brad, Kate, Isaac and Alex. It was so lovely to have all of you here.
And thank you for letting me be in for Kasie. We really appreciate you joining us today.
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