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Inside Politics

New York Faces Record Snowfall Weeks Into Mamdani's Tenure; Walz: Trump Agreed To "Independent Investigation"; Bovino Defends Administrations Account Of Fatal Shooting Despite Contradicting Video Evidence; Immigration Operations In Minnesota Raise New Questions About Who ICE And Border Patrol Are Accountable To. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired January 26, 2026 - 12:30   ET

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

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[12:30:52]

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: The snow and sleet seemed to finally be stopping across most of the U.S. But with freezing temperatures extending from Dallas to the tip of Maine, a lot of that snow, it's not going anywhere anytime soon. 50 -- 56 percent of the lower 48 states are blanketed right now and more than 18 states have seen over 1 foot of snow.

New York City is one of the places hit hardest by the winter weather seeing record-breaking snowfall at Central Park. The storm presents the first major challenge for the new mayor, Zohran Mamdani who came into office with the biggest question, one of the big questions being his lack of experience actually running government.

Gloria Pazmino is in New York. What are you hearing, and what are you seeing as we start to get answers to that question?

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Dana, you know, I can tell you that speaking to sources in City Hall before the storm some of what the mayor's communications team was doing was actually looking at previous press coverage from other administrations and other mayors who sort of bungled their response to previous snow storms. And they were doing that as part of a strategy to really prepare their communication throughout the storm.

And Mayor Mamdani was really just omnipresent throughout the day yesterday. He met with sanitation workers. He met with a regular New Yorkers even at one point jumping in to save at stranded motorists helping, them to dig out from their parking spot. So he was really out there trying to communicate directly to New Yorkers about the storm, about the very dangerous cold weather.

And I asked him today how he would grade his response and his administration so far. Here's what he told us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) PAZMINO: What grade do you give yourself and the rest of the response and the people behind you?

MAYOR ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D), NEW YORK: I will leave it to New Yorkers to give me a grade. I will, however, say that I am incredibly impressed and appreciative of the work of the city workers. For all of the conversation about politics, really what they want to know is, can you meet their basic needs? And I think what city workers showed yesterday is that we can. And it's only possible if you take time in advance to prepare for something like this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAZMINO: Now, Dana, I spoke to the mayor yesterday, I think without question, he knew that this was a test for him and that people would be watching to see not only how his administration would handle their response, but how the city responded in, you know, in this moment. We've gotten a lot of snow more than we have gotten in the last several years.

And now as people begin to clean up and people begin to dig out of the storm, the challenge is going to be the very cold temperatures. Sadly, the mayor also confirming this morning that at least seven New Yorkers have died over the past two days. It's still not clear if their deaths were directly tied to the storm.

But five of those people were found on Saturday going into Sunday and two others were found on Sunday. So some of those people also had interactions with the city's homeless shelter system, according to the mayor. So it is a dangerous a storm. The conditions today continue to be very cold and that's going to be the challenge going into the rest of the week.

The last thing I'll say, Dana, the mayor did disappoint a lot of New Yorkers specifically 1 million of them and those are, of course, New York City's of public school kids who did not get a proper snow day today, but they are remotely learning. About 400,000 students have so far signed on, about 500,000 were expected. And so far, so good in terms of the remote learning. Dana?

BASH: My 14-year-old doesn't pay attention to a lot, but he knew that if he lived in New York City, he would have to do remote school and he was very glad that he did.

Thank you so much. Appreciate it, Gloria.

Up next, more from my lengthy interview with Border Patrol commander- at-large Gregory Bovino. Questions about the evidence that could back up the argument that he and others at Homeland Security are making. Stay with us.

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[12:39:36]

BASH: We just got a statement from the office of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz about his conversation with President Trump that we reported on earlier. The governor's office called it productive adding, quote, "The president agreed that he would talk to the Department of Homeland Security about ensuring the Minnesota Bureau of criminal apprehension is able to conduct an independent investigation as would ordinarily be the case The president also agreed to look into reducing the number of federal agents in Minnesota and working with the state in a more coordinated fashion on immigration enforcement regarding violent criminals."

[12:40:12]

Now President Trump is sending a new direct report to Minneapolis Veteran ICE Official Tom Homan. It's unclear how he will work with leaders on the ground like the chief and the chief-at-large of Border Patrol Gregory Bovino. I spoke at length with Bovino yesterday and there are a lot of unclear assertitions (ph) -- an assertions that the administration is making about Alex Pretti and his possession of a gun.

Here's just part of our conversation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Was he a threat because he had a gun in his hand that put law enforcement in danger?

GREGORY BOVINO, BORDER PATROL COMMANDER-AT-LARGE: Dana, we heard the law enforcement officer say gun, gun, gun. So at some point they knew there was a gun. So, again, that is going to be part of that investigation as to what was happening on the ground there between those victims, the Border Patrol agent victims, and the suspect.

BASH: Both the police chief in Minneapolis O'Hara and Governor Walz say Pretti was legally licensed to carry a concealed weapon. So are you saying, it's not OK for him to exercise his Second Amendment right? Not to mention his First Amendment right to be there in the first place, but his Second Amendment right to carry a gun? And if you do, you can be shot by federal law enforcement.

BOVINO: No, I didn't say that, Dana. I never said that. What I'm saying is, we respect that Second Amendment right, but those rights don't count when you riot and assault, delay, obstruct, and impede law enforcement officers and most especially when you mean to do that beforehand.

BASH: How do you know that?

BOVINO: When you mean to do that before and when you show up to an active crime scene, don't leave the crime scene and you're armed then, you know, you've got the decision-making process --

BASH: So --

BOVINO: -- for that individual doesn't seem to be very good. Now, back to the Second Amendment, what you're saying about the Second Amendment is peacefully protesting with firearms? Absolutely, I've done that myself, and fully support that but not when you perpetrate violence, obstruct, delay or obfuscate Border Patrol in the performance of their duties in an active --

BASH: There was no evidence that he was perpetrating violence. And there's no evidence, unless you have it and we'd love to see it if there is, that he was intending to massacre law enforcement other than the fact that he was there and he had a gun lawfully.

BOVINO: He meant to be there beforehand. Again, Dana, he meant -- he came there beforehand for --

BASH: How do you know that?

BOVINO: -- a reason.

BASH: How do you know that?

BOVINO: Because he was there.

BASH: All he was doing was filming and documenting it which is legal. He was carrying a gun which in Minneapolis is legal.

BOVINO: I didn't say it wasn't and I didn't say it wasn't legal.

BASH: So then what did he do that was illegal?

BOVINO: But he cannot assault federal law enforcement when he does that. That's an active law enforcement crime --

BASH: Where do you see in the video that he was assault --

BOVINO: -- that he decided to enter into.

BASH: Where do you see in the video that he was assaulting law enforcement? Because from everything we have seen, law enforcement was assaulting him when he was there trying to help another individual.

BOVINO: Dana, law enforcement doesn't assault anyone. Follow directions of law enforcement. Follow directions of law enforcement in an active crime scene. Very evident he didn't want to do that, very evident that the other individuals didn't want to do that. And, you know, it's too bad the consequences had to be paid --

BASH: Yes.

BOVINO: -- because he injected himself into that crime scene. I can't say that enough. He made the decision to go there.

BASH: I want to --

BOVINO: We didn't make the decision to talk to him. We didn't even know that individual was in existence until he came into that crime scene.

BASH: I want to go back to video number one because you keep seeing that he injected himself into the crime scene. He was a guy on a street filming a -- an operation. He wasn't -- he was far away. He wasn't on the crime scene. And what I want you to see again is that law enforcement appears by the video we have to be approaching him and the person who is next to him not the other way around.

And so what I want to know is what evidence do you have that he went after law enforcement?

BOVINO: Sure. The fact that he was standing in the middle of the road, there was interaction between him, the bystanders, and law enforcement and again follow directions of law enforcement. He doesn't need to be in the middle of a crime scene.

Dana, I don't think you would want to be in the middle of a crime scene or you would want civilians in the middle of a crime scene injecting themselves into something that is none of their business at all.

[12:45:01]

BASH: Can you also just answer the question about the gun? Because, again, do you have any evidence that he was brandishing his weapon? Did he ever have his hand on the weapon?

BOVINO: Yes, again, the officers on the ground in that meeting (ph), we hear, gun, gun, gun. So that gun at some point became visible to officers.

BASH: But could it have been because they were -- they had him on the ground and maybe his shirt came up and they saw that it was on him? That doesn't mean that he was --

BOVINO: Pure speculation and that --

BASH: But --

BOVINO: -- that is why we have an investigation, Dana.

BASH: Fine. I --

BOVINO: That is what we are investigating. You're not going to know that now and I'm not going to know that now.

BASH: I think an investigation is great, but the Homeland Security Secretary said he was brandishing a weapon. Do you have evidence that we haven't seen that he was brandishing a weapon?

BOVINO: He was -- he brought a semi-automatic weapon to a riot, assaulted federal officers, and at some point, they saw that weapon. So I do believe the secretary is 100 percent spot-on in what she said.

BASH: Seeing a weapon --

BOVINO: Why would you bring a weapon and assault a federal officer if you did not have intent --

BASH: OK. BOVINO: -- to harm or delay or obstruct that federal officer with a weapon.

BASH: You keep saying that he assaulted a federal officer, but again, we have not seen evidence that that happened. It looked like he was on the defense and again, he had a gun legally. It just -- it's sort of feels like we're in the upside down where we have law enforcement and conservatives who are very pro-Second Amendment saying the problem was that he had a gun, legally.

BOVINO: No, the problem is, as I said several times now, he injected himself. He put himself where he did not need to be. He put himself in and put law enforcement officers in jeopardy through his actions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Up next, as the president and administration officials say there will be an investigation into the shooting, there are real doubts as to who? ICE, will be the Department of Homeland Security? How will the FBI be involved? If at all, who's accountable? That's next.

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[12:51:37]

BASH: ICE and Border Patrol operations in Minnesota raised new questions about accountability inside the Department of Homeland Security. What kind of oversight is happening there?

CNN Legal Analyst Carrie Cordero researched that back in 2020, almost six years ago, and her conclusions are especially prescient. She wrote, quote, "When the public starts to perceive Homeland Security, including law enforcement activities as politically motivated, or, worse, when these activities actually become politically motivated, it undermines public confidence that law enforcement activities are conducted equally under the law. This state of affairs is corrosive to the rule of law in a functioning democracy."

Carrie Cordero joins me now. Carrie, thank you so much for being here. It's I think also important to note just to set the table in this conversation that the Department of Homeland Security is pretty new. It was only created to put a whole bunch of agencies under one umbrella after 9/11. Because of that, probably needs to be investigated that the way that you did several years ago, you did warn about the kind of situation that's unfolding in Minnesota.

CARRIE CORDERO, CNN LEGAL & NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yes, Dana. Thank you.

One of the things that I was looking at back then when we did this research at the Center for New American Security was the fact that the department was created based on a whole bunch of different agencies and put together. What happened is it wasn't built in with the institutional protections that you really need given the large law enforcement capacity that the department has. Bigger than any of the law enforcement agencies combined in the Department of Justice, for example, DHS is actually the largest law enforcement department in terms of the number of officers that are there and yet there's not sufficient in my judgment and based on the research that we did oversight accountability, institutional processes within the department, and they haven't been developed mostly due to a lack of reform to the law that was originally created to create the department about 25 years ago.

BASH: And given that, what does it tell you that President Trump announced this morning that he wants Tom Homan who is his border czar to now go into Minneapolis and that he is going to directly report what he sees there and what he does there to the president directly?

CORDERO: I think that it might indicate a few things. One is that it might be that the president is starting to lose confidence in the leadership of the department itself given the way that the activities of ICE as we all can see on the videos are not operating in the way that federal law enforcement officers should operate.

And the other piece that is interesting is although Homan is the border czar, in my judgment, it should be border patrol that first of all should be leaving Minneapolis. Border Patrol should be working on the border. Their legal authorities, although, over time they've been interpreted to allow them to operate within 100 miles of the border, that is not Minneapolis. They are not trained appropriate to be engaging in law enforcement on American streets.

[12:55:00]

And so, I will be curious to see whether Homan as border czar and facilitates the departure of Border Patrol from inside Minneapolis.

BASH: Yes, that certainly will be interesting and that was one of the questions I had for Greg Bovino who is a Border Patrol chief of whether or not they did have the training for urban policing, which is effectively what they're doing now, and he defended it. He said that they did. We'll see what Tom Homan says.

Thank you so much, Carrie Cordero. Really great to have you on.

CORDERO: Thank you, Dana.

BASH: Thank you for joining Inside Politics today. CNN News Central will start after a quick break.