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Protests Erupt After Federal Agent Shoots Man In Minneapolis; Trump Threatens To Invoke Insurrection Act In Minnesota; Heated Clashes In Minneapolis After Federal Agent Shoots Man; Soon: Trump Meets Venezuelan Opposition Leader At White House; Trump: Still Weighing Military Options In Iran; New CNN Poll: 75 Percent Oppose U.S. Taking Control Of Greenland. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired January 15, 2026 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: An Oval Office threat pull Minneapolis protesters on notice. The Democratic governor calls it an occupation.

I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.

It's 11 a.m. in Minneapolis, where residents woke up to a city dealing with chaos after a violent night of protests. The situation went from bad to worse after a federal agent shot a man in the leg during a targeted traffic stop. In the hours after demonstrators gathered at the scene and faced off with federal law enforcement. The Department of Homeland Security says the agent was assaulted by a Venezuelan national. Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem, defended the agents' actions this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KRISTI NOEM, HOMELAND SECURITY, SECRETARY: Last night, what we saw, was three individuals weaponize shovels and brooms and attack an ICE officer that had to defend himself. So, we're hopeful that we don't see that in again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: President Trump is threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act. He wrote this morning on Truth Social. Quote, if the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don't obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrections from acting -- excuse me, attacking the patriots of ICE who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the Insurrection Act. The Insurrection Act allows deployment of troops in the U.S. in limited situations and was last invoked in 1992 during the L.A. riots.

I want to go straight to Minneapolis. Whitney Wild is there. Now, Whitney, you were in the middle of it last night. I'm glad to see that you are safe and sound. I'm sure, didn't get very much sleep last night. Can you describe, since you were there, what the reality was and what it is now? WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Last night, it was quite confrontational. There were two scenes around where the shooting happened. There was one scene that was around the corner and up the block, and that was where we saw most of the federal law enforcement detonating flash bangs and tear gas.

And what we saw as we were coming up, we didn't see what, you know, prompted them to do that, but we certainly saw the aftermath of it as federal law enforcement launched those tear gas and flash bangs into the protesters. And the way that the street was situated, Dana, it was -- had a downhill slope, so all of those canisters were rolling down and getting caught underneath vehicles, getting caught up in the feet of the protesters. It bounced off my foot, bounced off my side.

Our team ended up actually getting separated because the cloud of smoke from the tear gas became so thick that we couldn't see and for a moment actually couldn't hear each other because it was so loud. That scene calmed down a few minutes after that happened, although through the night, we would occasionally hear flash bangs, we would occasionally smell tear gas. The tear gas, though, did hang in the neighborhood for quite some time, so it go away, it would come back.

It seemed to -- you could see the haze in between the cars and in between the houses. And it created this kind of eerie silhouette around everything that we were seeing that was illuminated by the law enforcement lights. And then on another scene, Dana, this was closer to where the shooting actually happened. We saw dozens of federal law enforcements standing shoulder to shoulder. They were from ICE. They were from customs and border patrol, and that scene was much calmer.

That was again, much closer to where the shooting happened. There was a police line there. So, protesters, while they were close to federal law enforcement and screaming in their faces, they didn't interact with them much physically. We only saw one instance where there were two people who were detained after what looked like somebody in the crowd behind the protesters had thrown what we thought was a firecracker. We never figured out exactly what it was. Those two people were let go pretty quickly, Dana.

Now here in Minneapolis -- we are downtown Minneapolis. This is very calm. Looks like any other day here, but this is a city that is already on edge, and certainly that flared up last night, Dana.

BASH: All right, Whitney. Thank you so much for that reporting. Really appreciate it. And I'm joined here by a terrific group of reporters. Priscilla Alvarez, I'm going to start with you. I just want to -- I'm going to talk to David about the Insurrection Act right in a second. But I just want to talk about the reality that we face right now, after what happened last week with Renee Good's killing.

And that is -- this time we don't, as far as we know, have video of what happened with this man being shot in the leg. We do have DHS saying exactly what they said was happened, which is that he was defending himself and it was a bad situation for him. You can fill in those blanks. But because we saw what we saw with our own eyes, and because the explanation was so different from DHS last week, it puts the whole question of trust in a very big question mark box.

[12:05:00]

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. What you're getting at is that the Department of Homeland Security has a credibility issue. One that came up last week, when there was the ICE involved shooting of the woman Renee Good. But also, before that, for example, in Chicago, when a federal judge had found that they were not forthcoming with the details of incidents, particularly as it was involved protesters and federal agents. The department in this case says that the officer was assaulted, and you could see the chaotic scenes that unfolded there that Whitney was describing.

The question I've asked multiple sources, many of whom are veterans of this agency, is, have you ever seen anything like this? Have you ever lived anything like this? They all tell me, no. The landscape has completely changed. There's the heightened rhetoric, and there's also the sheer number of agents that are in this area, 3000 agents.

So, what does that mean when they are going out and doing what they call targeted enforcements? That means that they know who they want to go get. That doesn't mean that others can't be swept up in that, but they have an idea of who they're going after. They go with bigger teams.

What do bigger teams mean? That attracts attention, and then comes the protesters and the whistles, and it can lead to these really aggressive confrontations. You saw there some men in fatigues. Those are usually the Special Response Teams, either with ICE or with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and they are there to do crowd control. And it is just the situation that keeps escalating, despite police experts saying that there should be a deescalation.

BASH: Yeah.

ALVAREZ: The thing is, when there are so many officers on the ground doing this deportation mandate, who they themselves are, under increasing pressure to meet quotas from the White House, it just all the elements of this lead to this extraordinary moment that is playing out in Minneapolis.

BASH: And once again, instead of, as you say, trying to deescalate. The posture in the Trump administration is just the opposite, including and especially from the president this morning with that threat on the Insurrection Act.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Even if it is creating an environment where their actual goals of safety are harder to meet because of the environment that is being created by the sheer numbers and the approach. Dana, the Insurrection Act, as you noted, was last invoked in 1992. Now, by the way, this is not Donald Trump's first time of threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act and we haven't seen it yet. So, you know, we'll see what he does.

But in 1992 that was because a governor of California requested that of the President George H. W. Bush at the time, as it related to the Los Angeles riots. That is not the scenario that we would be in right now. And this is all to avoid what has been law for centuries of not deploying the U.S. military domestically onto our streets.

This, as the mayor of Minneapolis said, sort of this tinder box that has been created here. I don't think anybody, law enforcement, the administration, local officials, nobody thinks this is sustainable.

BASH: Let's listen to the way that the Democratic Governor Tim Walz described it last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. TIM WALZ (D-MN): This long ago, stopped being a matter of immigration enforcement. Instead, it's a campaign of organized brutality against the people of Minnesota by our own federal government. Let me say once again to Donald Trump and Kristi Noem. End at this occupation. You've done enough. Donald Trump wants this chaos. He wants confusion, and yes, he wants more violence on our streets.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Because everything is so political, and all the rhetoric is at an 11, maybe -- frankly, I think I have become a little bit numb to it, but hearing a governor say that this is an occupation and that a president wants more violence on our streets needs to be noted.

TIA MITCHELL, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, THE ATLANTA JOURNAL- CONSTITUTION: Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, to Dave's point, the rhetoric is troubling. And you know, the White House says it's the governor and it's the mayor that are contributing to it. Of course, we've seen very, very troubling rhetoric from Secretary Noem, from President Trump.

I think when it goes back to the credibility that Priscilla mentioned, some of it is the lack of details and information. Body camera footage could probably help people understand what happened, but we don't have any video right now, even the information about who was being targeted by that raid.

You know, if there was justification, this was a very violent person and people say, yes, this person should have been taken off the street. But there's so much that people don't know and are having to fill in, and then, unfortunately, it's being filled in by rhetoric that's probably not helping either side.

[12:10:00]

ALVAREZ: Can I just say one thing about the rhetoric too? Even though the Insurrection Act hasn't been invoked, we don't know if it will be. The president and his senior aides have been using the term insurrection for months, if not years. So, there has been some groundwork that has been laid and that rhetoric, when it is said on X or on other media outlets, it matters, and it all goes toward.

BASH: I just want to revisit some polls that we first showed on the show yesterday because it really does underscore where we are, and it's quite telling with the public and what we're seeing in Minneapolis. First the question of whether the protests, whether they're concerned, whether more concerned about the government response going too far, 47 percent, the protests will get out of control, 37 percent, neither 16 percent.

And then whether ICE is making U.S. cities less safe. A majority says, less safe, 51 percent, 31 percent say more safe. So that is the backdrop. And then I just want to get one other thought on the politics of this from you David, that was noticed by Melissa DePalo, our great producer here. About what Democrats are saying, from Governor Walz to Hakeem Jeffries in Congress, about what people need to do to save information, to hold on to any documentation. Listen to Walz.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WALZ: If you see these ICE agents in your neighborhood, take out that phone and hit record. Help us create a database of the atrocities against Minnesotans, not just to establish a record for posterity, but to bank evidence for future prosecution.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: And Hakeem Jeffries noted that there's a five-year statute of limitation, which means Trump won't be in office.

CHALIAN: And this is not the first time we've seen this tactic. J.B. Pritzker, the governor of Illinois as far back as September or August, made this a central component of his governorship right now in Illinois, to build exactly that, a database. He urged citizens in Illinois, when they -- when the ICE was in Chicago to film everything and get out your phones.

So, this is -- this is -- this has been months building now from Democratic officials, from state officials, not -- it's not just to put out on X, or whatever it is to build these legal cases that are undoubtedly coming down the pipe.

BASH: But being out on X and other places on social media, is definitely contributing to the new poll that we were talking about.

CHALIAN: Yeah. And I'm glad you raised that figure, because I think that finding that you said, 47 percent of Americans say that the government response will go too far versus 37 percent that the protests will get out of control. That to me, if I'm Donald Trump or Secretary Noem in the White House, I look at that and say, we have some serious work to do to have our argument prevail broadly with the American people.

BASH: All right, everybody standby. When we come back, the president is set to meet Venezuela's opposition leader for the first time. That's just going to happen in a few minutes. Will she offer the president her Nobel Peace Prize? Plus, we asked Americans if they want Greenland to join the United States? And on this issue, the answer was really resounding.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: This hour, President Trump is having lunch at the White House with Maria Corina Machado, the leader of Venezuela's opposition party. It is their first in person meeting. It comes almost two weeks after the U.S. ousted and captured president -- former president, dictator Nicolas Maduro.

Now Machado wants to run Venezuela, but so far, at least, President Trump isn't calling for new elections. He has been praising a part of Maduro's regime, the former president -- excuse me, former vice president, who is now the acting president Delcy Rodriguez. So, Machado is in Washington hoping to win President Trump over, and it may come with a price. She, of course, won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, and President Trump has made clear, he wanted it.

David and Tia are back, and we're now joined by Jim Sciutto as well. Jim, I know you've been doing a lot of reporting on what people in and around Machado and the opposition party in Venezuela are thinking at this moment.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Listen, she's meeting with the president. That's good. She's got a meeting. So, there's a relationship, but big questions remain open. One is simply will, and when will there be elections, right? And, you know, that seems to be part of the plan. But the president is getting quite friendly, cozy, comfortable, it seems, with Nicolas Maduro's former vice president.

Does that take away some of the urgency to have a democratic process to choose the leader of Venezuela. President Trump calculates that he can deal with her Delcy Rodriguez for now. So that's an open question. But the administration still says, we're looking -- we're building towards a transition.

The next question is, what is Machado's role in that? Because by all accounts, she and the opposition -- the opposition candidate, actually won the most recent election. So based on the most recent data we have, they have the popular support of the people, despite what President Trump said quite publicly that well, Machado, I'm not so sure she has the respective of her people.

[12:20:00]

When I speak to the opposition, my sense is, they're very nervous, but even more nervous about saying anything that gets them on the wrong side of the president. And I think you could put, I'm sure that this is going to be a very nervous conversation for Machado in that room, perhaps up to and including, I've brought the Nobel Peace Prize here, so that I could get on your good side.

It's quite an important question, given that the rationale for this operation had for some time been, we want a democratic government. We don't want a dictator there.

BASH: Right

SCIUTTO: At this point, we don't know when that's going to happen.

BASH: Right. Because the argument that Marco Rubio and others have made is, in the short term, we want stability, as long as Delcy Rodriguez does what we tell her to do. And there's stability --

SCIUTTO: We get what we want.

BASH: Right. And we're going to -- we'll hold off on --

CHALIAN: And Dana, everything Jim just said --

BASH: Yeah.

CHALIAN: I think is a proof point of what Donald Trump was talking about when he said he was running Venezuela, and then they moved to the language of leverage. I mean, think about that. Everything you just said, like, how long Delcy Rodriguez stays in place, whether or not there are elections, the opposition coming to court favor. I think it's all proving out what he meant by, I'm in charge of Venezuela.

SCIUTTO: In a normal world, you would ask the opposition what they think. As they represent the people of Venezuela, that doesn't seem to be the world we're occupying.

MITCHELL: And it kind of comes back to even what we saw in Minnesota, where it seems that some of this is personal. It's political retribution. It's about Tim Walz running for vice president on a ticket that opposed Donald Trump.

And now, unfortunately, in Venezuela, it seems that way too, that this whole, you know, some of the way he's treating Machado, doesn't have as much to do with the politics, actually, of that country. It has to do with the fact. She won a Nobel Peace Prize and the president didn't. And that's just -- it doesn't seem like the best way to run domestic or foreign policy, but it seems like that's what we have in America.

BASH: I don't know. I'm not -- I mean, can you speak to that? Because my sense is that, obviously the president wanted the Nobel Peace Prize, but that --

CHALIAN: It still does.

BASH: It still does. But that this posture isn't so much about, like I'm going to take my ball -- my ball and my toys and go home. I'm mad that I didn't get the Nobel Peace Prize. And more about trying to think a few steps down the road in Venezuela, so that he can get -- when the American can get what Trump thinks that we need there.

SCIUTTO: It could be both, right? This wouldn't be the first time that personal peak with Trump drove U.S. foreign even national security policy, right? Look at Zelenskyy in the Oval Office because they felt he wasn't deferential enough. Very nearly broke a key national security relationship, and only through great work, you know, was Zelenskyy able to recover that.

But at the same time to your point, his focus seems to be very much at this point on control and oil. And if the Delcy Rodriguez's regime can deliver oil and oil profits to U.S. oil companies for now, perhaps for a decent length of time. That's a win for him.

BASH: While we wait for Machado to show up to see maybe, maybe they'll open it to cameras. I do want to get your take, and everybody's take on what's going on with Iran and what the president's posture is on Iran. There was really interesting tweet by Lindsey Graham, who has been, obviously very supportive of Donald Trump recently, but is historically a very, very big hawk, especially on Iran.

He met with the son of the late Shah -- former Shah, who is now kind of trying to find -- fill a void to potentially be a leader of whatever revolution could or could not be happening. This is what Lindsey Graham said. Every indication that I've seen says that the Iranian regime's killing of protesters is still very much in full swing.

The death toll is mounting by the hour, hoping that help is on the way, reading between the lines or explaining this. The president said, help is on the way. Protests kept going in Iran, and he's clearly publicly saying to the president, you can't, you know, stoke the protesters and then not follow up with help.

SCIUTTO: Yeah. Speaking to a lot of folks who are watching Iran very closely, including folks speaking to people on the ground there. I don't know anybody who believes the killing has stopped, right? I mean, it's a big country. Protests are taking part in many cities. Security forces deployed in those cities.

So, it's not clear how the president got confidence that the killing has stopped entirely. It does appear that they delayed the death penalty for one of those protesters. The military option is still clearly very much on the table. The fact that the president pulled it back in the last 24 hours doesn't mean that he doesn't put it into action.

And while the U.S. has reduced its military options by moving so much hardware to the Caribbean, including an aircraft carrier, carrier group, et cetera. There are other assets in the region, both air assets, missiles that you could launch, and long-range aircraft that still give the president options. So, I don't believe, based on what I know, that that is off the table.

[12:25:00]

BASH: All right. We're going to sneak in a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about President Trump's threats to Greenland. And one Republican Congressman says, if President Trump tries to seize the island, it could be grounds for impeachment. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: President Trump has made it clear that he wants the U.S. to own Greenland. We asked voters if they want the same. The answer is pretty clear. 75 percent of adults in CNN's latest poll say, they oppose the U.S. attempting to take control of Greenland. Only 25 percent favor that idea. Even among Republicans, there's a lot of opposition. Look at that. 52 percent of them support it. Now that's low for Republicans