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Major Storm System To Bring Snow Rain Across 1,000-Mile Stretch; U.S. Atty: D.C. Shooting Suspect To Face First Degree Murder Charge; Trump Escalates Immigration Crackdown After Death Of National Guard Member; Trump Admin Says Vetting Of Suspect Was Insufficient; During First Term Trump Justified Muslim Ban Using San Bernardino Terrorist Attack; Trump: Refugee Burden Is "Leading Cause Of Social Dysfunction"; Focus Shifts To Tennessee Special Election; Dems Optimistic About Narrowing Race For Solid GOP House Seat; Democrats Look To Flip Trump +22 Seat In House Race Tuesday; Key House Race Could Erode GOP's Razor-Thin Majority. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired November 28, 2025 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: For the first system is expected to die down across the Northeast by tonight, but the winds will be picking up at the same time across the High Plains and the Midwest as that second system begins to near. You're looking at 30, 40, even 50 mile per hour winds that are going to blow all of that snow around, leading to very poor visibility.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Wow, that is really something. Allison. Appreciate it. Thank you. Well, thanks to all of you as well for joining me, spending part of your day with us here in the "Situation Room." Stay tuned. "Inside Politics" with Manu Raju starts right now.

MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to "Inside Politics." I'm Manu Raju in for Dana Bash. President Trump is promising his harshest immigration crackdown yet after a shooting in Washington, D.C. left one National Guard member dead and another in critical condition.

20 year old Sarah Beckstrom, a member of the West Virginia National Guard has died from her injuries after being shot on Thanksgiving eve not far from the White House. The suspected shooter, a 29 year old Afghan national who worked with the U.S. government in Afghanistan during the war. He came to the United States in 2021 through a program created under the Biden administration. He was granted asylum under the Trump administration.

On a Thanksgiving call with U.S. Troops, President Trump signaled how he planned to respond.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This heinous atrocity reminds us that we have no greater national security priority than ensuring that we have full control over the people that enter and remain in our country. For the most part, we don't want them. They come in illegally. They have a lot of problems. Their countries force them in because their countries are smart. They don't want them. Let's give them to the Americans to take care of them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Hours later and just before midnight, Trump announced some of his most far reaching changes to his anti-immigration agenda. As part of a lengthy social media post, he said, quote, "I will permanently pause migration from all third world countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions, including those signed by Sleepy Joe Biden's auto pen and remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States or is incapable of loving our country, end all federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens of our country, denaturalized migrants who undermine domestic tranquility and deport any foreign national who is a public charged security risk or non-compatible with Western civilization."

CNN's Kristen Holmes is in Palm Beach, Florida where President Trump is spending the 10th Thanksgiving holiday. So Kristen, there is a lot to unpack from Trump's social media posts.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, there is and it's very clear that President Trump and his team, the White House, are going to be doubling down on this issue of immigration, something that they have perpetuated through President Trump's term, and also starting to have some more or different ways to tackle immigration, things that some of which he had discussed on the campaign trail, but others are clearly new.

So I do want to go through what we know about the response so far. And just to say this is just some of what we are hearing in terms of this crackdown. As you mentioned, this working to permanently pause migration from all third world countries that is on this list, looking to potentially deport the suspect's family. That was also something that he had brought up. We have U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services reexamining all green card issued to people from 19 countries of, quote, "concern." And reviewing all asylum cases approved under Joe Biden.

And I think we have a map here to show you. I'm not going to list all 19 countries, but you can see what they mean when they say countries of concern. There are several countries in Africa as well as the Middle east, some of them Afghanistan, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, Iran, Libya. That's just some of these 19 countries. He had issued a Presidential proclamation in June about this. But now, of course, they are going to be cracking down and reviewing all of these cases.

I will say one thing, you know, we've heard a lot of response to this in a political way, but I am hearing from both Democrats and Republicans that there is one part of this response that is seems to be at least truly bipartisan, which is reviewing the Afghan visa system, reviewing the asylum claims or the people who came here under asylum, particularly in 2021, because this now crosses two administrations.

You had this suspect who came into the country under a government program under President Joe Biden in 2021, but wasn't granted asylum until Trump was in office in April of this year. And so there are a lot of questions as to how somebody who could commit such a heinous crime and essentially a crime in which he point blank shot two National Guardsmen. And there are a lot of questions about why and the motive there, how that person was able to not only get into the country, but also was able to be granted asylum.

[12:05:00]

So that might be one part of this that is going to be bipartisan in terms of looking at that program and seeing what happened there. But you're also going to see President Trump's White House doubling down on some of the things that, that they had been talking about for a very long time. Now, clearly, they feel like they have a reason to go through with a lot of it.

RAJU: All right, Kristen Holmes, traveling with the President, who's spending this Thanksgiving weekend in Mar-a-Lago in Florida. Thank you for that.

And I'm joined here in the room with a terrific group of reporters. Thanks, guys, for being here this -- on this day.

So look, Trump's ammo since coming into the political arena has been going after Muslim immigration. Remember he talked about back in 2015, ban all Muslim travel to the United States. That was back in 2015. He, of course, had an executive order back in 2017 that going after Muslim migration. It was struck down by the courts and he had to revise it. He was allowed to stand.

This is much different what he's talking about here. Kristen, noted here he's going to reexamine green cards for 19 countries. You can see on your screen there the 19 countries from African countries, Middle east, some in South America. Evan, how is he going to be able to implement this? Because they're talking about a loyalty test as well. Is this a real thing that they're going to actually try to implement all this and get rid of people who are, you know, green cards, you're here legally. This is legally issued by the government. You are legally allowed to be here. Can they actually do this?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, they'll certainly try. And look, we've seen them do this before where they come up with an emergency power that the President says he has and then dare the courts to try to stop it.

And so what we expect, obviously, with this is that they're going to run into the same trouble that they ran into with the Muslim ban. In the end, they were able to basically make that legal by admitting that the rights of people who are permanent residents matter. Right. Not just U.S. Citizens, but there are rights that come with being a permanent resident that, that they cannot just override. And so they'll have to battle it out in the courts if they want to do this.

What it does, though, is it really puts a mark on all of these Afghan immigrants, especially ones who did so much. They sacrificed a lot. They worked with the CIA, this unit. There were thousands of members of this unit that this suspect came from, the NDS that worked in Afghanistan directly for the CIA. There's a reason why they got sort of expedited entry into the United States after the fall of Afghanistan.

And so those people were vetted a number of times. But there's been a struggle too, to try to make sure that the vetting was appropriate. I'll tell you this, there were examples of people who essentially bought backgrounds from brokers. And so the question, the problem with Afghanistan has been that there is no functioning system to be able to check those -- the data, that background check information. And it's been a problem that has worried the FBI and DHS since the fall Afghanistan -- of Kabul.

RAJU: Tamara, you covered the White House, what are you hearing from inside the White House about how they plan to respond?

TAMARA KEITH, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT NPR: This is very much in line with the way that the President and people in his administration, people like Stephen Miller, have been talking about immigration. President Trump in his remarks on Wednesday night brought up Somalia. That is not an accident. That is something that the President has been focused on recently and that he is emphasizing.

You look at refugee policies where the White House wants to bring in white people from South Africa who they say are being persecuted. They don't want to bring in other refugees. The refugee program has been severely restricted under the Trump administration already. So in a lot of ways this is a terrible event that has given them a sort of a peg to do a lot of the things that they were already doing or wanted to do.

And it does come at a time when the President's approval ratings are in a really bad place, including on immigration. But this is a realm of immigration where he has had more traction than some of the other areas.

RAJU: And speaking of the refugee issue, this is what he said in a couple of late night posts last night. Right before midnight he put out these posts here on Thanksgiving night. He said, "This refugee burden is the leading cause of social dysfunction in America, something that did not exist after World War II. Failed schools, high crime, urban decay, overcrowded hospitals, housing shortages and large deficits." This is -- he's very clear where he's going with this.

DAVID WEIGEL, POLITICS REPORTER, SEMAFOR: Well, I like the way that Tamara put it. It is something they want to do. It's a long term project. This administration with the four years it has, been given by voters, wants to transform the immigration system.

[12:10:00]

One, so there's a larger deportation force. So the immigration courts are seen as deportation courts, as they call them. They're doing more hiring right now to make that happen. They're trying to build the capacity for mass deportation because it wasn't there in the first term. You've covered this. So many things that they're doing right now are taking the lessons of the first term where they were stimmed by a court or stopped by a court. Going to a more favorable court this time with -- we saw this with the Muslim ban, it was a 5, 4 decision that upheld the President, but that's a 6, 3, conservative court now. So they like their -- they like their odds. But there is a long term strategy here.

But what are the political risks of it? For Trump, he's not in the ballot again. For Republicans, we already saw them lose ground with Asian American and Arab American voters in Virginia and New Jersey. Just huge shifts back away from the Republican Party. This is not the Republican agenda that won Dearborn, let's say in the last election. This is more like what he wanted to do in the first place. And voters don't get a veto on this. They have -- it's going to be fought out in the courts, in Congress.

Look, final point I'll make is why was it easier for some Afghans to get here if they cooperated with the Americans in the war? It was bipartisan vote of Congress. The Allies Act, Mike Johnson voted for that. I don't think you're going to have any Republicans saying that was a good idea. Now the Stephen Millers of the party who already were controlling the narrative are going to control the politics too.

RAJU: A very few Republicans voted against that.

WEIGEL: Yeah, I think 16. Yeah.

RAJU: In fact -- yeah something like that. So part of this post, there were just a number of things that are eyebrow raising to say the very least. This is what he said about -- he said, refugees from Somalia are completely taking over the once great state of Minnesota. He said that there are Somalian gangs looking for prey. As he said people are staying locked in their apartments. He called the governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, quote, "seriously retarded."

He went on to call Ilhan Omar the worst congresswoman -- Congressman/woman. He ridiculed her for wearing a hijab. And she said that question about whether she's in the country illegally.

KEITH: Yeah, a lot of that is problematic.

WEIGEL: It's racist.

TIA MITCHELL, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, THE ATLANTA JOURNAL- CONSTITUTION: I was just going to say it's rooted in racism and xenophobia. A little bit of misogyny possibly in there or sexism in there as well. And I think that there are people in the White House who believe that the best message that Donald Trump has right now is his immigration -- anti-immigration message. That that's really the only thing that he has to counteract all the concerns people are raising about why voters are -- why his approval levels are so low.

They're worried about the cost of goods. They're worried about safety. Yes. They're worried about the cost of housing. They're worried about health care. And he's not addressing much of that directly. But what he is doing is saying indirectly the immigrants in the U.S. are causing or contributing to all those problems.

I don't know if that's going to work with the American people because they've seen the immigration crackdowns, but they also have seen that grocery prices aren't going down as a result. Their health care issues aren't being resolved even with the crackdowns at the southern border. So, yes, he can do more on immigration, but I don't know if that's going to address what American voters really expect him to be working on.

PEREZ: Just real quick. I just want -- I think, just focusing on this event. I think one of the, part of the anger you're seeing from the President and from the White House is the fact that they would like to blame this on Joe Biden and everything on Joe Biden, as they've done. But they own some of this.

RAJU: Yeah. And just to that point, to that point, I want to show that what Trump said yesterday when he was asked about this situation. The fact that this suspect was granted asylum of April -- in April of this year.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: There was no vetting or anything. They came in unvetted. And we have a lot of others in this country, we're going to get them out. But they go cuckoo, something happens to them.

NANCY CORDES, CBS NEWS CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Actually your DOJ IG just reported this year that there was thorough vetting by DHS and by the FBI of these Afghans who were brought into the U.S. So why do you blame the Biden administration for what this man did?

TRUMP: Because they let him in. Are you stupid? Are you a stupid person? Because they came in on a plane along with thousands of other people that shouldn't be here. And you're just asking questions because you're a stupid person.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: And that's Nancy Cordes of CBS News, who's a very good reporter and asking a very legitimate question. And you see how defensive the President is?

PEREZ: Right. It's a factual question. It's true. It is not a stupid question. And the President should apologize to her because it is -- part of the problem is the President owns some of this. And that is just the fact.

And look, I mean, one of the things that I think when you're in politics and you're a leader is you go back and you look to see what we could have done differently. That's what usually happens. In this case, they've decided that they're going to just lash out and apparently going to punish like perhaps millions of people in the process because again, they don't want to accept that part of what happened here happened on their watch.

[12:15:00] And look, nobody -- you don't have to say that it's anyone's fault per se, but you can try to fix the vetting and make sure that this doesn't happen again.

RAJU: All right. We'll see a lot that will come in the weeks ahead. We'll see how much is actually implemented and how much of it is just talk.

All right. Coming up, CNN goes to West Virginia to hear from the friends of slain National Guard member Sarah Beckstrom.

Plus, a look at why a Tennessee Congressional District President Trump won by 22 points could now be a nail biter Special Election.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:20:00]

RAJU: We don't usually talk much about house races in districts Donald Trump carried by more than 20 points, But Tuesday's special election in Tennessee has Republicans on edge and trying to stave off a potential monumental upset.

Democratic state rep, Aftyn Behn, is hoping to flip the Seventh District against Republican Matt Van Epps, a former army pilot. Both have leaned on affordability in their closing messages.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AFTYN BEHN, TENNESSEE STATE REPRESENTATIVE: We all know the system is rigged in Washington. Here's how it works. Politicians make it easy for their rich donors, tax cuts for billionaires, and burying the Epstein files, while hardworking Tennesseeans get a rough ride by cutting health care for Tennessee families, doubling health insurance premiums, and tariffs that hurt our economy.

ANNOUNCER: Nine combat tours, true American hero.

MATT VAN EPPS, POLITICIAN: Now I'm on a new mission to bring down prices, create good paying jobs, and lower health care costs for working families.

RAJU: All right, my excellent panel is back. So there are a lot of reasons why Republicans are nervous about this. One big reason why is this extremely narrow House Republican majority.

Look at it right now, the balance of power, 219 Republicans, 213 Democrats and three vacancies. Those vacancies Democrats are expected to retain. So then that's 219 to 216. Marjorie Taylor Greene, she's resigning. So that was 218 to 216. And if Democrats somehow pull off a miraculous victory, it's 218 to 217. That's fear that -- that will have Mike Johnson up at night.

MITCHELL: Listen, Mike Johnson has already made it clear that he is stressed these days. And I'm sure these numbers are just adding to his stress. And even just the clips of those ads you just showed, the tone of these two candidates shows why, you know, Democrats do feel like they're finding a message that resonates with voters.

Again, there are so many voters in America who care less these days about the R and the D besides someone's name. They're listening and they're wanting someone who they think can speak to them and their needs. And I think that's what's playing out in Tennessee.

That being said, it's the Republicans probably going to pull it out. It's a deeply read district. But if that margin is much different, much closer than what was in 2024 with the previous with the incumbent or Donald Trump? That's still going to give Democrats something to be happy about.

RAJU: Yeah. And it's the unpredictability of it because it's a special election. It's right after Thanksgiving. Maybe a lot of voters aren't aware of it. And the fact that Democrats have done better in special elections than they have in the past cycle. This is what we reported here at CNN -- one of our some of our colleagues.

Tennessee's Seventh Congressional District on Tuesday will host the fifth and final U.S. -- special U.S. House election of the year. In the first four Democrats exceeded the Democratic candidates margins in 2024 House races by an average of 16 points.

WEIGEL: Right. And this was supposed to be safe because Republicans drew it to be safe. They carved up in the last map process in Tennessee. They carved out Nashville. There's no safe Nashville seat. Nashville's just poured into these rural areas. What we saw in Virginia earlier this month, rural turnout was not -- was flatter compared to progressive turn -- Democrat -- I shouldn't say progressive, just suburban turnout. The people who are frustrated with the administration all turned out early. All turned in their mail ballots.

You're seeing the same thing here. The turnout's been better. Davidson County, Nashville, Williamson County, in the suburbs. And those ads were a good demonstration of the race because the entire Republican primary with the expectation that winning the primary meant winning the seat was about who was most loyal to Trump. That was about it. Who has supported Trump the most? He later has to pivot to affordability.

Republicans thought they'd won this not just because of the map, but they thought, oh, urban Nashville liberal, who's talking about affordability? That's not going to play here. It turned out to play. They thought that would work a little bit more than it did in other elections this month. So she has been consistent on affordability despite being more liberal than the district. And the Republicans only in the last week pivoted away from I love Trump the most.

RAJU: And this is why there's seen some heavy hitters come in there. We saw Kamala Harris actually campaigning on behalf of the Democrat, Aftyn Behn. And there's also Donald Trump has done two telerallies there. Mike Johnson is calling into a radio show. And also Kid Rock. This is what he said to the Republican candidate there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KID ROCK, AMERICAN MUSICIAN AND SINGER: Let me ask you a couple questions.

EPPS: Absolutely.

ROCK: You support the police?

EPPS: I do. Absolutely.

ROCK: You support America first agenda?

EPPS: I do.

ROCK: Do you like country music?

EPPS: Yes, sir. Love it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEITH: Is Kid Rock country musician? I don't think he was.

RAJU: Countryish.

KEITH: Ish. You know what actually stood out -- so first off, yes, people are -- Republicans are trying to motivate their voters in a big way.

[12:25:00]

You saw President Trump posting on social media. Real concern here. Obviously, they -- you know, they're putting it out there. The thing that actually stood out to me from the Democratic ad, yes, affordability, but she talked about the system being rigged.

That is a message -- I mean, it sounds like Bernie Sanders. It also sounds like Donald Trump. And it's a message that's really been resonating with voters who feel like the parties just haven't been working for them, who are frustrated and angry and prices are high and they're just grumpy. And so that rigged system message is something we're actually -- I think, going to see a lot more of in the months ahead.

RAJU: And I wonder if the Democratic candidate will end up regretting bringing Kamala Harris to the race. At the end of the day, the Republicans seem to think that was a mistake. Some Democrats thought it was a mistake too. I guess we'll see if it matters at all. And it's a big race on Tuesday. We'll see the outcome as well.

All right. Next, CNN hears from the friends of the National Guard member who's killed in Washington, D.C., that's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)