Return to Transcripts main page

Laura Coates Live

Protests Continue as Trump Administration Defends ICE; Two People Shot in Portland During Targeted Traffic Stop; MN Democratic Congresswoman Confronts GOP Colleague; Laura Coates Interviews ICE Shooting Witnesses. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired January 08, 2026 - 23:00   ET

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

[23:00:00]

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR AND SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: This Sunday on CNN, what's next for Venezuela and its ousted president, Nicolas Maduro? David Culver reports. "The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper" "Inside the Raid: Venezuela's Future" airs Sunday at 8 p.m. Eastern on CNN and the next day on the CNN app.

Thank you very much for watching "NewsNight." "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.

UNKNOWN (voice-over): This is "CNN Breaking News."

LAURA COATES, CNN HOST AND SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Good evening. I'm Laura Coates in a cold night live in Minneapolis as protests continue for a second straight night over the deadly ICE shooting of Renee Good. I'm standing just a few feet away from the vigil for the 37- year-old where protesters have been demanding justice. Their anger further inflamed tonight by the administration's insistence that it was a tragedy of her own making.

The scene here calmer now. But earlier in the day, tensions boiled over near the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building. I was there when it went down.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: Once again, that's happening right now. You've got the agents --

(COUGHING)

Excuse me. Agents --

(COUGHING)

-- agents are coming right now. They're coming towards -- no, they're racing! They're going! They're going! They're going! Follow me! Follow me!

That scuffle broke out right after it looked like someone threw a water bottle at federal agents. At least one person was put on the ground and in handcuffs. And across the country -- (END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: -- demonstrations are growing in solidarity with Minneapolis. I'm talking about Boston and Baltimore, Atlanta. And now, there is a new --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: -- incident involving a federal officer. But this time, it's in Portland. Two people have been hospitalized --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: -- after they were shot by a border patrol agent. Now, DHS says agents were stopping a car with a couple that had ties to Venezuelan gang members when the driver tried to run them over, they say. We'll have an update on that story for you in just a few moments.

But back here in Minneapolis --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: -- there is still a dispute over exactly what happened and whether it will get a thorough investigation. We now know that Renee Good was a mother of three. Her ex-husband says she recently moved to Minneapolis. And the administration is trying to claim there is no debate about what happened to her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: That woman is part of a broader left-wing network to attack, to dox, to assault, and to make it impossible for our ICE officers to do their job. She was trying to ram this guy with her car. He shot back. He defended himself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: Now, note that Vance did not provide any evidence that she was a member or belonged to a left-wing network. And when he was pressed on why exactly he thinks that, he said, in his words, we'll have to figure it out. But the administration --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: -- already appears to have jumped to at least one conclusion. They say the shooting was justified. And the vice president says that the agent is protected by absolute immunity, which I can tell you is not that simple nor is it absolute. And now, state investigators in Minnesota say that they are withdrawing from the investigation. Why?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: Because the FBI, they say, took control and then blocked their access to the evidence. Minnesota's Governor Tim Walz is suggesting that deck is already stacked.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. TIM WALZ (D-MN): It feels very, very difficult that we will get a fair outcome. And I say that only because people in positions of power have already passed judgment from the president to the vice president to Kristi Noem, have stood and told you things that are verifiably false.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: CNN's Omar Jimenez is live in Minneapolis. He has been tracking the protests tonight. Omar, tell me, what are you seeing where you are?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN ANCHOR CORRESPONDENT: Yes, second night of protests here in Minneapolis, and we were tracking a pretty large group that was marching through south of downtown Minneapolis a little while ago, and they really ended up in the nearest intersection to where Renee Good was shot and killed.

We're actually on the other side of one of those intersections. You can actually see, they formed a bit of a makeshift barrier of sorts, blocking really vehicular access to that block and to that site, again, where Renee Good was shot and killed not too long ago. You can see some of the cars getting redirected. But some of them are coming down, honking their horns in support of what they're doing as they blow back whistles as well.

[23:04:58]

And really, the sentiment has not only been sentiment against ICE and against federal immigration agents being here, but also a lot of signs to keep Renee Good's name out there. There is one in particular that said "to protect the living and honor the dead" with Rene Good's name. So, we've seen a wide range of things over the course of protests today, including some of what you just saw, some intense confrontations with federal agents outside of federal building, but that's a few miles from here.

(HONKING)

COATES: We also see some news surveillance video showing several more minutes, Omar, of what happened before the shooting. I'm hearing all the horns behind you. And the honking, normally, indication that they believe either ICE is present or otherwise. What do we know about why Renee Good was there in the first place?

JIMENEZ: Yes. So, yes, you definitely could hear the horns as people were coming through. But we don't have a complete picture yet of what was happening beforehand. But what we do know is the "Associated Press" said that she was on the way back from dropping off her six- year-old at school.

And we were out in Renee Good's neighborhood today, which is essentially this neighborhood. She lives not too far from where I'm standing right now. And for those that haven't heard, I just want to play how the Department of Homeland Security has been characterizing this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KRISTI NOEM, UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY: These individuals had followed our officers all day, had harassed them, had blocked them in. They were impeding our law enforcement operations, which is against the law. And when they demanded and commanded her to get out of her vehicle several times, she did not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: Now, to be clear, we have seen across the country many instances of people getting in their vehicles and following federal agents, honking their horns, blowing their whistles, just making life difficult for them altogether. It is not clear, though, if that's what was happening in the lead up to this.

Now, what we have seen on the video is that clearly, there are ICE agents shouting commands as Renee Good's vehicle was seen sort of trying to back up. But there are a lot of agents there, one running up to the door, to driver's side door, and attempting to pull on the handle, it appeared.

So, we don't quite have the full picture of what happened in the lead up to this but, certainly, leading up to the shooting, a chaotic sequence of events, Laura.

COATES: Omar Jimenez reporting live. Thank you so much.

Let's get an update now on the breaking news in Portland, Oregon where two people have been shot during what DHS says was a targeted traffic stop against a couple with alleged ties to Tren de Aragua. Officials there now demanding ICE leave their city.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR KEITH WILSON, PORTLAND, OREGON: Portland is not a training ground for militarized agents. We are calling on ICE to halt all operations in Portland.

SEN. KAYSE JAMA (D-OR): We do not need you, you're not welcome, and you need to get the hell out of our community.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: I'm joined now by a member of the Portland City Council, Jamie Dunphy. Councilor Dunphy, thank you so much for joining. Do you have any more information that you could share about just what happened tonight?

JAMIE DUNPHY, PORTLAND CITY COUNCILOR: Yes. You know, we were in the middle of a city council meeting trying to elect our next president when we got news that this shooting happened in my community, in my side of east side of Portland. We don't have a lot of information because, as in Minneapolis, the FBI has taken over the investigation and has completely excluded the Portland Police Bureau from having any additional information.

However, we can say and the chief of police has confirmed that Tren de Aragua is not operating in the city of Portland. We certainly do have gang activity and we have a gang unit that focuses on that.

But the statement from the Department of Homeland Security is patently false. And your viewers should take it as false and not trust anything that the federal government has put out because, as near as we can tell, Tren de Aragua is not operating in the city and this was a pattern of increased violence and escalation that the federal government has clearly been trying to do in Portland.

COATES: Well, do we know anything about the medical condition of either the people that were shot? Who is in charge of providing that information or is anyone withholding that information from you?

DUNPHY: We understand that the two individuals, as we believe to be a married couple, are currently hospitalized. They are both alive, as we understand it, but we do not have additional information from that. Our understanding is that federal enforcement or law enforcement officers are in the hospital with them.

COATES: That would suggest they are presently in some form of custody or control of those officers even within the hospital?

DUNPHY: We would assume as such, but we have not been told any specific information because, again, the federal government is not sharing any information with us about the specifics or the current conditions.

[23:10:00]

COATES: Councilor, state officials rushed to demand ICE leave your city. That is same message that protesters here, frankly, have been saying in Minneapolis and it has been going on as a common drumbeat. How do you expect your community to respond to the news tonight?

DUNPHY: Yes. You know, Portland is a protest city. And we're going to show up. And our people are going to show up, whether it's carrying a sign with a pithy statement or dressing up like a frog. But our people are not going to stop, Laura. And this is not the kind of reaction we expect from our government. This is not indicative of the city of Portland.

And Portlanders are going to let their voices be heard. We had a long, proud history of being a protest city. And I absolutely expect my neighbors to show up and use their bodies to demonstrate that this is not acceptable.

COATES: Councilor Jamie Dunphy, thank you so much for joining.

I want to bring in law enforcement experts here at the conversation, former Minneapolis police chief Medaria Arradondo and retired ICE agent Eric Balliet. He also led internal investigations into use of force allegations against ICE officers.

Let me begin first with you, chief, because we're here in Minneapolis. First of all, we're smelling something in the air, what our audience understand. There's a huge crowd of people who are just down the road from us. There seems to be a revving of engines, a burning of tire, I smell, of some kind. We did see your sirens going by. At one point in time, they cannot go up this street.

Talk to me from your experience as, obviously, a chief of this city. What is going through the minds of the chief here or law enforcement in trying to address the obvious sustained concerns?

MEDARIA ARRADONDO, FORMER MINNEAPOLIS POLICE CHIEF, AUTHOR: Yes. So, right now, I was listening to Chief Brian O'Hara of the Minneapolis Police Department earlier tonight. They're just -- they're just very concerned. They want to make sure that people out here can express themselves. Obviously, a large part of this community feels that they're traumatized over the recent events of Ms. Good's death.

And so, you have that on top of the fact that we just knew that earlier, the FBI has said that they're not going to, at least at this point time, share evidentiary materials.

COATES: Did that surprise you?

ARRADONDO: It did surprise me. You know, the BCA, I have to say that, Laura, I've worked with the BCA before, they do an absolute incredible job in these types of investigations. I know Commissioner Bob Jacobson, just a man with great integrity, Drew Evans, the superintendent over there. They do these jobs thoroughly. They know the communities. They know Minnesota.

And so, for them not to be a part of this anymore -- you know, as I said before, communities can sometimes understand if the outcome isn't what they ultimately want, but what they definitely demand is that the investigation is transparent and they can trust it. And so, I think that's the concern right now here in the state, is that folks need to know that they can trust this investigative process moving forward.

COATES: Eric, I want to bring you in because we're learning about the ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Nicole Good. Apparently, he's a 10-year veteran, a highly-trained expert marksman. What does that tell you?

ERIC BALLIET, FORMER ICE AGENT: I think there's going to be a thorough -- there needs to be a thorough review. And, as the chief said, trust is the paramount litmus test for how this investigation moves forward. That to be said, every one of those shots, there were three shots in rapid succession, every one of those shots is a decisive use of deadly force that has to be justified in of themselves.

And what I mean by that is one, the first shot, which I believe went through the windshield, it could be a justified use of force. And then shots two and three, they still need -- each one of them needs to be justified. The agent needs to show that he was in imminent threat to his life or serious bodily injury, and the only alternative he had to protect his life or the life of others was to continue shooting. And I think the investigation will --

COATES: Eric, let me ask you about that point, though, the eminent of the harm. Let me ask you about that because the latest DHS policy prohibits law enforcement officers, as you know, from using a firearm at a moving vehicle except in justified deadly force situations. Yet the vice president of the United States is saying the agent is protected by absolute immunity. Is he?

BALLIET: I am not a lawyer, so I don't want to opine on the legality of the immunity. I will say this when it comes to drawing conclusions: This investigation is still in its infancy stages. Words matter, measured words matter, credibility matters, and facts matter. So, I think it's premature to draw any conclusions on whether this was a justified shoot until the investigation has fully run its course.

COATES: Chief, I want to bring you in here because tensions have been flaring. And, obviously, there is the question about immunity. We obviously know the instances where officers have been charged with crimes by local officials.

[23:14:59]

Naturally, they have normally controlled their own investigations, which does not appear to be the case here. But we know that National Guard has been placed on standby. We know that there is an escalating of tensions. People are still very angry and frustrated. And as more and more rhetoric and conversations come out from the White House and, of course, Washington, D.C., it might be increased. How do you grapple with that tension and the conjunction with the National Guard?

ARRADONDO: Yes. So, I think a couple of things. I think that one of things that has to continue to happen is certainly, on the ground here in Minneapolis, officials here at the city level, obviously, that the police chief, the mayor, the governor, all of these folks have to continue to make sure that they're doing the best they can, Laura, to communicate to the community, just moving forward.

The National Guard, obviously, Governor Walz has activated them. They know this community. Those are Minnesota citizen soldiers and airmen. So, that will be helpful.

COATES: Community members, really.

ARRADONDO: Community members. They've been in this posture before while there's still that urge of peace and calm. But again, just communicating. It will be important for our federal partners to at least continue to give updates on how this investigation is going to go along because the community is going to continue to demand that. If they don't get that sort of -- those updates, that transparency, that's when tensions can rise.

COATES: Chief, thank you so much. Eric as well. I appreciate your time. Up next, my conversation with the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey. What he told me about the investigation, the protests, and his response to Vice President J.D. Vance. You're going to want to hear it, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:20:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VANCE: I can believe that her death is a tragedy, but also recognizing that it's a tragedy of her own making and a tragedy of the far-left who has marshaled an entire movement, a lunatic fringe against our law enforcement officers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: Vice President J.D. Vance blaming the ICE shooting death of a Minneapolis woman on the victim herself and the far-left, apparently. Earlier this evening, I caught up with the Minneapolis mayor, Jacob Frey, for response.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COATES: Thank you, mayor. I want to get your reaction to Vice President J.D. Vance's statement earlier today where he suggested that although it was indeed a tragedy, it was a tragedy of this woman's own making. What is your reaction?

MAYOR JACOB FREY, MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA: They're blaming the victim. They have already said that this was an action by ICE in self-defense, and they called the victim a domestic terrorist. And if you watch the video with your own two eyes, you'll see exactly what I've seen, which is this is ICE's fault.

The chief and I have been saying for well over a month that this kind of thing could and potentially would happen. And whether it was an ICE agent, a police officer or a civilian resident getting seriously injured or killed, this is a tragedy. I agree with that small part, but it was one that is entirely predictable.

COATES: People have been very critical of Kristi Noem, of President Trump, in fact, also of you, broadly about having a final conclusion on to whether this was a justifiable act of self-defense. Can you respond to criticism that anyone is getting ahead of their skis because the full investigation has not yet concluded?

FREY: Well, I think it is fair and righteous to say that we need a full and fair investigation. And just yesterday, I was saying that we're not going to preempt the investigation coming from the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension before making a final determination. And that being said, I think it's fair to immediately call out a narrative that was being pushed by the White House and this federal administration as B.S. because it is.

I'm going to tell the truth. I can see with my own two eyes a person in the victim that was trying to get away. You know, she wasn't using her car as a battering ram when she's going through a two- or a three- point turn to try to exit the circumstance that she found herself in. Saying otherwise is just false.

COATES: Can you trust that the investigation, however long it takes, would be objective and independent if, as we understand it, it is spearheaded only by the federal agencies, not local or state officials?

FREY: In general, I never like to distrust the conclusion of an investigation as it's getting started. And at the same time, the way this was presented to us was that this was going to be a joint investigation carried out by the DOJ and the local Bureau of Criminal Apprehension at the state level.

COATES: And it's not?

FREY: And now, they've removed the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. They've prevented them from getting very important investigative materials. And what that tells me is that either they're hiding something or they want to prevent other eyes from seeing the results of the investigation itself.

COATES: Could you trust the results? Should the public trust those results then?

FREY: I haven't seen what the results are yet. That being said --

COATES: You seem very skeptical.

FREY: I'm all super skeptical. I mean, you know, I think you're catching the drift of what I'm saying. Answer is no. This is ridiculous. You know, when they, from the very get-go, are saying things like the victim is a domestic terrorist, when they are saying from the very beginning that this was an act of self-defense, when they're saying that the ICE agent was run over, when -- if you watch the video, I could not be further from the truth. Of course, there's some due skepticism here because what they're saying isn't true.

[23:25:00]

COATES: I wonder the frustration you must be feeling knowing that you do not want ICE's presence in Minnesota. And yet they are saying that they have apprehended people who are criminals. They've done so in this latest iteration of their presence here. Is there a disconnect between what you're saying about them not being needed here and their presence resulting in viable arrests?

FREY: We in Minneapolis are not disconnected. We are fully connected to what is going on. And I'll tell you, we have worked substantially with federal agencies. We've worked at the DEA, the ATF, the FBI, the U.S. Attorney's Office to arrest perpetrators of violent crime, to drive down gun violence. We worked tirelessly to get crime and specifically shootings on the north side to a historic low. That is presently the case.

But this whole notion that the ICE is coming in here for safety purposes, like the times where we've previously worked with them, is so far from the truth. The reasons they're coming in here have nothing to do with safety. It's not about driving down crime. If that was the goal, there would be mechanisms to do that.

What they are doing is causing chaos and distrust in our city. What they have done is randomly pluck people off the street, discriminating only on the basis of are you a Somali or are you Latino, and then there's no discrimination thereafter. In other words, they're just picking people up. We see the conduct that they have exhibited, whether that's dragging a pregnant woman through the snow or that's picking a kid up off the street who has done nothing wrong at all.

COATES: So, even when ICE is pointing to, as recently as this week, today, otherwise, saying they have arrested people accused of violent crimes or who have been known to have committed them, does that give you any pause in your all-out assertion that they should not be here for any reason?

FREY: In Minneapolis, I'm going to take a very easy position here, we're anti-murder. You know, we are anti-crime. We do work with federal agencies around driving down murders and crimes. If they were an administration that was methodically going after those murderers and those criminals, then, yes, we work with them. But that's not what is happening here. That's not what is happening.

They've deployed 2,270 some odd agents to our city. You can see they're going around to locations where they can find a significant number of Latino people or Somalis, and they're plucking them off the street. Yes, they have also gotten some criminals that have done some bad things. And, look, I got no problem with arresting criminals. I do, however, have a problem when you violate the Constitution.

COATES: What I noticed were the ICE officers holding a line to prevent anyone from gaining entry to the parking lot and beyond. And there were waves of significant unrest. In fact, there was pepper spray, there was tear gas that was emitted at different points in time. I myself victim to it in many ways. What goes through your mind as a mayor, knowing that there is this enormous tension that continues?

FREY: We collectively can't take the bait. The Trump administration and some of these federal agents clearly want to cause chaos, and they want to look for an excuse to deploy a further military occupation. We all know that that occupation would be horrific to the immigrant neighbors that we all want to protect. And so, to that extent, we're all singing from one accord --

COATES: And that is peaceful assembly?

FREY: Peaceful. Peace. We need peace, we need safety, we need to meet their hate with a whole lot of love, we need to meet the kind of conduct that they are showing with a whole lot of justice. We've got to make sure right now that we are our best versions of self because there is some magnitude to this particular moment. We got to do things right. And from what I am seeing, there are a whole lot of community members that are singing from that same songbook. COATES: Mayor, thank you.

FREY: Thank you so much.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COATES: Still ahead, J.D. Vance says there's no way the state can charge the ICE agent. But my next guest, he says otherwise. It's the former county attorney who brought charges against Derek Chauvin who will join me to explain. And later, Minnesota Congresswoman Angie Craig confronting her Republican colleague in a heated shouting match over the response to the shooting. The congresswoman is standing by live to join me next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:30:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COATES: Tonight, the Trump administration says the FBI is investigating the deadly ICE shooting here in Minneapolis. But he listened to the vice president, J.D. Vance. He thinks the officer is immune from prosecution.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VANCE: The precedent here is very simple. You have a federal law enforcement official engaging in federal law enforcement action. That's a federal issue. That guy is protected by absolute immunity. He was doing his job. The idea that Tim Walz and a bunch of radicals in Minneapolis are going to go after and make this guy's life miserable because he was doing the job that he was asked to do is preposterous.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: But it's far more complicated than that. And to talk more about that complexity, I want to bring in Michael Freeman. He's a former Hennepin County attorney and filed the criminal charges against ex-officer and now convicted killer, Derek Chauvin, in the murder of George Floyd.

[23:35:02]

Michael, thank you for joining us. I wonder what your response is to this claim that has been circulating, that Minnesota could not prosecute this officer because of acclaimed immunity.

MICHAEL FREEMAN, FILED CHARGES AGAINST DEREK CHAUVIN, FORMER HENNEPIN COUNTY ATTORNEY: The vice president is wrong. There are claims in some cases of federal immunity. I do not believe that would apply in this case. We have a rogue officer acting in a malicious way that killed a 37-year-old woman in cold blood. He had no reason to fear for his life. He had no reason to fire his weapon, and he shouldn't have. And I believe he will be prosecuted successfully in state court. COATES: Walk me through that investigation with an eye towards prosecution from your experience because the criteria you describe, whether the reasonableness of his actions or a use of self-defense justification, how does that factor in to a prosecutor's decision of whether to even charge this person even aside from whatever stated immunity issues might come in?

FREEMAN: Well, first, the prosecutor has to determine that there is sufficient admissible evidence to prove the crime of reasonable doubt that this woman was killed. Secondly, he or she has to consider the potential defenses. And one of the defenses is self-defense. And for an officer to use deadly force, they must believe that they are reasonably subjected to violent force that will kill them if it isn't stopped. In this case, you look, she's unarmed. This idea that she weaponized her vehicle is ludicrous. The officer wasn't even in front of the vehicle, as the video you just showed.

Moreover, he shot three times. The first time, the vehicle, he may have been close to the vehicle, but he could have stepped out of the way. The second two times, it was clear that the vehicle wouldn't hit him, and a person has a responsibility to try to avoid injury. In this case, I don't believe, from what I've seen, the officer did.

Now, I will say that all I have seen is what it been shown so far on the media. And every good law enforcement official and prosecutor knows that there's lots of other pictures and witness statements. So, it is premature to make a judgement. But what I have seen so far, I believe --

COATES: I want to go there, Michael. Go ahead. Michael, thank you. I didn't want to step over you. But when you talked about what you've seen so far, it made me think of what people have not perhaps seen, and that is the fact that Minnesota, they were investigating the shooting and they say the FBI was initially cooperating, but changed their minds last night.

And so, you have to wonder about what access any investigative team would have to factor that whole prosecutorial decision flow chart you described. Have you ever seen this before where the FBI initially agreed to cooperate and then withdrew that cooperation?

FREEMAN: No, I have not. In my 24 years as an elected prosecutor, we worked with the feds all the time. In serious cases here, we worked hand in glove with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which is a very fine professional group, well-recognized. And the FBI combined our resources to do an investigation. And that's how it could and should be done. That's how it started here in Minnesota. But, suddenly, the FBI said, no, we will no longer cooperate.

Our governor, Tim Walz, has suggested that the parties ought to get back together and the interest of justice ought to be investigated together. I agree. I think it is time to quit playing politics through the Department of Justice and let the professionals in both the FBI and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension do their jobs, and let's let the politics wait for another day.

COATES: We will see what happens. Michael Freeman, thank you for your expertise and weighing in tonight.

FREEMAN: Thank you for having me.

COATES: You could literally see the tension over the ICE shooting boiling over on Capitol Hill. Two Minnesota representatives got into a heated argument on the House floor yesterday. Democratic Congresswoman Angie Craig went up to talk to Republican Congressman Tom Emmer. He had just told reporters not to jump to conclusions about the shooting, and that upset Craig, who believes the administration isn't telling the truth about what really happened. And after Emmer returned to the House floor, Craig said she had no choice but to confront Emmer about his comments. He has not commented on the argument.

[23:40:00]

But I am joined now by Congresswoman Angie Craig. Congressman, thank you for joining us. Why did you decide to confront your colleague and what did you say to him?

REP. ANGIE CRAIG (D-MN): Look, I thought it was important to share my point of view with my colleague. He's the number three House Republican in leadership. He has a direct line in relationship to President Trump, to Kristi Noem, to those in the administration. And what I said to him was this political stunt from this administration caused a woman to be shot today.

COATES: How did he respond?

CRAIG: He didn't want to have that conversation with me. He told me to walk away. Walk away. As you can see from the video, I'm not going to walk away.

I'm not going to walk away from this conversation on behalf of the people of Minnesota, on behalf of law enforcement in Minnesota, because one of the first phone calls I made after I watched that horrific video of the shooting was to my local law enforcement in Minnesota's 2nd Congressional District, I am just south of St. Paul in Minneapolis, I literally border the congressional district that this happened in, and what they told me is that, you know, this is not the protocol that Minnesota officers would have used.

And having these ICE agents in Minnesota is making Minnesota less safe, and none of us should support making our country less safe.

COATES: Well, the vice president said that Renee Good was, in his words -- quote -- "radicalized". The secretary, Kristi Noem, called her actions domestic terrorism, her words. What is your response to those claims, particularly given the positions of the people who said them?

CRAIG: Well, look, those two individuals, you know, have never met the average Minnesotan. I mean, we are just salt of the Earth people, people who believe in secure borders. And at the same time, we know we're a nation of immigrants and that we are going to be and deserve to be a nation of immigrants. So, look, think Kristi Noem in particular is breaking the law. I think that her tactics are egregious. And I plan to join a number of my colleagues in introducing articles of impeachment against Kristi Noem. You can't come into our communities, make them war zones with these not trained to enforce the law in urban areas and do what they're doing. It's chaos and it got to stop. It just does.

COATES: Do you have support for articles of impeachment against Noem or are there others that you believe might join you in that effort?

CRAIG: Well, look, Republicans are going to join us in anything. They're acolytes of this administration. And, you know, unfortunately, my colleague, Tom Emmer, has become one of them over the last several years. He has joined the cult. And so, my Republican colleagues, you know, we're not naive. We know they're not going to join.

But that isn't going to stop us from making the case to the American people that there's a Constitution in this country, that there are laws in this nation, and we should expect everyone to follow them, including the administration and the president of the United States. We have to hold people accountable in this country if we will continue to be a country of laws.

COATES: Congresswoman, we're hearing that some Democrats are threatening to shut down the government unless Congress tries to curb some of the powers from ICE. It's very unlikely, as you said, that Republicans would join in and to support that. But do you support that idea?

CRAIG: Well, look, I think we're going to get into those budget discussions here later this month. Look, I think the lack of following the rule of law by this administration is egregious. And I think that while all options have to be on the table, that we're going to look to Hakeem Jeffries and Democratic leadership for guidance here just like we did when we made sure that the American people knew that the affordability crisis is, especially related to health care, is on the backs of this Republican Party.

COATES: Congresswoman, thank you so much for joining us this evening.

CRAIG: Thank you. Can't wait to be back home with the people that I love in Minnesota.

COATES: Congresswoman Angie Craig, thank you so much.

Still ahead, a new account of what happened to Renee from two eyewitnesses who saw it all unfold. They're here to tell us about it next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:45:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COATES: The administration had been quick to draw conclusion about the victim of that deadly ICE shooting despite an active investigation just getting underway. But here's what we do know about 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good. She was a mother of three. Her youngest son, just six years old. He is now an orphan. She has been described as a devout Christian, someone who loved to sing and write poetry. Here's her former professor.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN: She wrote outside of her circumstances. A lot of times, young writers write about themselves, right? You write what you know. Renee wanted to write about other people. She wrote about elderly people and about people from other places, and in circumstances that were unlike her own.

[23:50:03]

That was a remarkable quality in and of itself, that she was able to listen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: With me now are members of the community who were at the scene of the shooting, Lynette Reini-Grandell, who witnessed the shooting, along with Venus de Mars, who witnessed the aftermath. Unbelievable to think about where we are right now. I want to ask you, talk to me about what that moment was like when you realized that somebody had been shot in your own community by ICE.

LYNETTE REINI-GRANDELL, WITNESSED MINNEAPOLIS ICE SHOOTING: It was awful. It's hard to describe. I mean, I could -- you know, in some ways, it felt logical that the tension had been building for so long, that I'd been, you know, viewing videos online of just terrible cruelty going on, I'd been reading reports. But I -- I just -- it wasn't real until I heard the gunfire. I was --

COATES: You actually heard the gunfire?

REINI-GRANDELL: I heard the gunfire. I had walked past her car because I had just been -- I had just been trying to be a witness near the elementary school over here. It's just two blocks away from here.

The staff and administration were asking people in the community to come and essentially watch while the kids were getting off the school buses from 9:15 to 9:30 because ICE vehicles had been circling the school all morning, and they were afraid that parents were going to be yanked and there was going to be horrible disruptions to the kids and everything like that because ICE has been abducting parents as they're dropping kids off, picking them up at schools and daycare.

COATES: And I understand that when you heard those shots, you came back here. You were seeing the aftermath of that shooting. What did you see?

VENUS DE MARS, WITNESSED AFTERMATH OF MINNEAPOLIS ICE SHOOTING: Right, yes. So, ICE had blockaded the car that she was in after they shot her and killed her. We didn't know that at the time, but we knew she was shot. And they used their weapons to keep everybody away.

I was on the other side because we live over on that side, and I came over. They had carried her out of the vehicle and down to -- the EMTs carried her out of --

COATES: The EMTs carried her?

DE MARS: Yes, and all the way down to the end. ICE wasn't doing that. And when I got here to start observing and figuring out what happened, I saw that they were doing CPR on someone, I didn't know who it was, on the sidewalk here behind one of the snow banks right here.

COATES: At that point, did you see the injury? Did you know if this person was conscious or alive?

DE MARS: They were doing CPR, so I knew that they were not --

COATES: Breathing.

DE MARS: Their heart wasn't breathing. Their heart wasn't beating. They weren't breathing. And Lynette had let me know someone was shot. So, usually, if somebody is shot, you're dealing with blood, you're trying to stop the blood, you don't do CPR. I was already thinking that this person is not going to make it. And it took forever for the ambulances to get through all the ICE vehicles that were jammed in the area right here.

REINI-GRANDELL: That must have been difficult.

DE MARS: Maybe 15 minutes.

COATES: Fifteen minutes. Must have been like an eternity watching somebody at that point.

REINI-GRANDELL: And just to let you know, so, I didn't hear the shooting from over there. I had already come here and was videotaping. I passed her car that would have been just up there a little way. And it was --

COATES: At that time, she was still in the car?

REINI-GRANDELL: She was still -- I guess -- I guess she was in the car, she was alive. I wasn't here. I wasn't -- I was trying to figure out why there were so many ICE vehicles on the street. I had no idea that she was involved except her car was sort of positioned diagonally in the lane, and that was odd. But, you know, I didn't see any movement in the car, I didn't see any ICE vehicles around the car, I didn't see any ICE officers on foot near the car. So, I kept on going --

COATES: At some point, they obviously were around the vehicle.

REINI-GRANDELL: Yes.

COATES: Did you see the moment of the shooting or where the officers were at that time? REINI-GRANDELL: No. I had already passed the vehicle. So, I'm guessing I was maybe 100 feet past the vehicle. And I'd started crossing the street, thinking I could figure out what ICE was doing there if I looked on the other side of the street because I wasn't seeing anything here. And as I was in the middle of the street crossing it, that's when I heard the gunfire.

COATES: Venus, what has the community been like in this aftermath, just 24 hours since a woman lost her life?

DE MARS: We're very angry, disturbed, really sad.

[23:54:58]

I think we're trying to counter the rhetoric and the spin that is being given to cover for what that individual did, killing this woman. And we were -- this community saw that. We were here. It's our neighborhood. We know what happened. And it's infuriating to see our administration not taking that seriously and listening to what has actually happened, but coming up with another scenario which covers for their action.

COATES: Lynette, Venus, it has been an unbelievable, I know, day in community right now. Thank you for joining us.

REINI-GRANDELL: Thank you so much.

COATES: There's more live coverage out in Minneapolis ahead, also out of Portland, Oregon where protests are starting to pick up after that shooting involving federal agents. I'll be live with Elex Michaelson right after this short break. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)