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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Potentially Historic Winter Storm To Batter U.S.; Anti-ICE Protesters March In Minneapolis Despite Bitter Cold; Patel Touts Arrest Of FBI Most Wanted Fugitive Ryan Wedding; Trump: U.S. "Armada" Heading Toward Iran "Just In Case"; South Carolina Measles Outbreak Reaches 700 Cases. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired January 23, 2026 - 18:00   ET

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

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Taper. We're following breaking news tonight. States are declaring emergencies left and right as a major winter storm gears up to drop crippling amounts of ice and snow across 2,000 miles from Texas to New England. Even a small amount of ice can have big impacts. What about a large amount of ice? Well, possibly catastrophic.

Accumulations will make travel impossible, bringing down trees and power lines. Many southern states in the United States, include Georgia, are telling residents to prepare for potentially days of power outages in frigid temperatures.

Meteorologist Chris Warren has all the details.

[18:00:00]

Chris, what's the latest forecast?

CHRIS WARREN, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, Jake, it does look like this is going to come in a couple of waves and we're starting to see the first one take shape in Texas. Here's the apparent area of low pressure. But out ahead of it, already seeing rain changing over to sleet and freezing rain in Texas with snow in parts of the panhandle moving into Oklahoma with the rain again. We can still see in Dallas this is going to be a cold rain, colder air is dropping down from the north, and as the system progresses, the rain changes over to freezing rain. So, instead of seeing ponds or puddles on the road, the rain's going to hit stuff and freeze. So, that's the freezing rain.

Here's tomorrow morning at 8:00 in East Texas into the Ark-La-Tex, Shreveport, Bossier City, this moves off, heavy rain at times here on Saturday. And then the next wave is moving. So, you're getting a little bit of a break in Dallas, and then here it comes again. This is 11:00 tomorrow evening with ice throughout parts of Texas, more rain on Sunday, which could come in the form of thunderstorms as well with ice and extreme cold behind it.

For Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, the snowfall, some spots a foot to a foot and a half. But the big story in the days to come will be the ice. I mean, as big of a deal as a foot and a half of snow is in Oklahoma, this right here, this ice will be crippling. People could be without power for several days. This system continues across the south. Here's Atlanta. You're in the ice throughout parts of the overnight Saturday into Sunday, could see a changeover to rain with some storms rolling through on Sunday.

And then to the northeast after we see all of this ice, to the south, to the northeast is where the snow is going to be. So, the ice, again, still crippling. Here comes the snow as the ice is happening in the south, snow ongoing for several hours here on Sunday. And as long as you don't get a big changeover into rain or sleet, the snow here in the northeast is going to pile up and pile up in a big way as well.

And you can see with that, the darker purple colors showing where there could be more, Jake, than a foot and a half of snow.

TAPPER: All right. Chris Warren, thanks so much.

Let's bring in CNN's Ed Lavandera in Dallas and CNN's Pete Muntean who's at Reagan National Airport, just outside D.C.

Ed, we all remember when the Texas power grid infamously failed during that deadly February 2021 snow storm, leaving millions of Texans without heat and subfreezing temperatures. The storms are going to really put the new Texas power grid to the test. How are crews and Texas preparing?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, says that the power grid here in the state has never been stronger. Other energy grid officials also saying that they do not anticipate any grid collapse because of the demand for heat that will exist over the next several days. But that does not mean that there will not be power outages. Clearly, with the amount of ice that is expected to blanket many parts of the North Texas area into East Texas as well, that is the area of serious concern.

And, obviously, the roadways. As this winter misery is set to kick off here in a few hours. The roadways here actually pretty quiet for a Friday afternoon around rush hour, but really kind of speaks to the fact that people are already heeding the warnings and starting to figure out how to get to a safe place. Throughout the day, we have seen crews all over the area preparing, pre-positioning trucks and material all around the area to try to keep the roadways as manageable as possible. But that will only become much more difficult as the temperatures continue to drop. It has been raining and drizzling throughout much of the day. So, all of that will continue and we brace for the worst of it to come starting early tomorrow morning. Jake?

TAPPER: Pete Muntean at Reagan National, the storm has not hit yet, but it's making major impacts on air travel. Tell us more.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, if you've not gotten out of an airport already, Jake, it only gets more maddening from here on out. In fact, we can assuredly say now that Saturday and Sunday are going to be the two worst days for us air travel we have seen in the last year.

Thankfully, today has been relatively calm and we've seen only a few flights here at Reagan National Airport end up in red here on the departures board, although the numbers are getting higher and we will see some major airline hubs on this list tomorrow. Dallas-Fort Worth a huge hub for American Airlines, they're only going to operate at about a few percent of normal. Just check FlightAware. They have about 72 percent of all flights that are canceled tomorrow. Oklahoma City being hit hard, Memphis being hit hard, Nashville being hit hard, and then Dallas Love, also a huge hub for Southwest Airlines.

Here's what airlines are doing right now. They're trying to reposition their planes out of the storm's path, then bring more employees in to the places where this is going to be the toughest. We're talking de- icing crews, baggage crews, folks below the wing.

[18:05:01]

Although they will be the ones out in the bitter cold that will linger after the snowstorm passes.

In fact, here in D.C., the highs not really expected to crest above 30 degrees Fahrenheit next week. It is going to be a long, hard run here for airlines and travelers in the U.S. We are only at the beginning of what is going to be a really tough stretch, Jake.

TAPPER: All right. Pete Muntean and Ed Lavandera, thanks so much.

The wintry mix is set to soar across Western and Northern Texas into early evening. Joining us now from the Texas Department of Transportation is Adam Hammons. Adam, we all, of course, remember the ice storm in 2023 causing major travel and power issues. What lessons were learned from that? How is Texas better prepared this time around?

ADAM HAMMONS, TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION: Yes, of course. That really did hit us hard, right? It was a long period storm and it was (INAUDIBLE) for a long period of time and it affected the entire state of Texas. It was really affecting us a lot for a long period of time, and that's a little bit different where we are now.

But from that storm, we do look at lessons learned. Look at what we did and see what we could do better in the future, and that's with every single storm. And so from that one, particularly in the sense of how long that was, we have increased our material supply throughout the entire state, both in local individual areas and across the state. That'll give us that supply of brine materials, granular materials, to help us treat those roads and respond to the roads across the entire state.

TAPPER: With rain also possible in this forecast, are there concerns about pre-treating these roads too far in advance?

HAMMONS: Yes, sure. We've been treating the road since Wednesday and we've been treating with what's called a brine solution. It's kind of salt and water. And that does last several days. And with some spotty showers, it doesn't have too much of effect on that brine. But sustained rain can wash that away. So, that is why our crews are out there throughout the state treating before during, and after the storm. We have lots of crews out there. They're doing a great job in the cold out, in the elements, out in the road, treating those roads on those interstate highways across the state. And, again, this is really hitting a large part of our state as the storm moves in. And so that's why we're out there. That's why we're also encouraging people to stay home if possible. That's the main message to Texans right now, is to stay home this weekend if possible.

TAPPER: How many snowplows and treatment trucks are available right now to you? Do you have enough equipment? Will resources be repositioned to certain specific areas?

HAMMONS: Yes, of course. We're well-prepared for this storm. We have nearly a thousand pieces of winter weather equipment that is snowplows. It's steel girders that is those brine trucks, and we're well prepared for that. If the need arises, we can work with our state partners to get some more. We can also work with our contractors to get more equipment.

But like you said, we can also mobilize crews from other parts of the state. We're a very large state here in Texas. The southern border is seeing a little bit less impacts over the next few days. So, from the far area, we did have a crew come yesterday. Actually, Wednesday, they drove up to North Texas to help respond to that storm. We're looking at potentially the northeastern part of the state to have the larger impacts, but we are prepared throughout the entire state because we know that ICE can accumulate in a large part of the state, and we're going to respond where those big challenges are going to be over the next few days.

TAPPER: All right. Adam Hammons with the Texas Department of Transportation, thanks and good luck to you.

A big crowd of protesters taking to the streets in sub-zero Minneapolis today to protest the immigration actions in their city. That protest now moving indoors to the Target Center Arena. We're going to go to Minneapolis next.

And from protests in the U.S. to protest in Iran, I'm going to be joined live in studio by the son of Iran's former leader who's calling on the U.S. to help take out the Iranian regime. That's ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:10:00]

TAPPER: In our National Lead, hundreds of businesses are shuttering as demonstrators are swarming streets across the Twin Cities in below zero temperatures today, united under the slogan, ICE Out of Minnesota, protesting against the federal immigration enforcement in their state. Police arresting some demonstrators at the Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport, a spokesperson says the protest there had been prearranged and police only took action when things got out of hand.

This afternoon, former NAACP Leader Nekima Levy Armstrong is out of custody. She was detained Thursday for her role in Sunday's anti-ICE protest inside a church in St. Paul.

All of this showing how the divide between Minnesotans and federal officials is only growing deeper, even as the Trump administration says that, by the numbers, their immigration efforts are working to drive down crime.

CNN's Omar Jimenez reports from Minneapolis.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: The temperatures around negative 20 degrees right now, even colder with wind chill. Where this food is going is, for the most part, to people who are too scared to come outside right now because of the increased federal immigration enforcement presence here in Minneapolis,

SERGIO AMEZCUA, SENIOR PASTOR, DHH CHURCH: My assistant pastor, a lot of people register. I said, 20, 10, 2,000. I'm like, what? Wow, 2,000.

JIMENEZ (voice over): Sergio Amezcua's Minneapolis church has a predominantly Latino congregation. He says services don't look like they used to.

How many people are we talking?

AMEZCUA: We have around 500 to 600 people in the normal days.

JIMENEZ: Yes.

AMEZCUA: Right now, we get 100 or 80, we're lucky.

JIMENEZ: It's a sense of community that's been disrupted and one he says has been part of driving down violent crime in the city after spikes in 2021 and 2020.

AMEZCUA: If you look at the police department right now, it looks way different than 2020. They're really working with the people of Minneapolis. And that's making the difference.

JIMENEZ: Whatever the exact formula, Minneapolis has seen results. Now, even though homicide rates are still up in the city compared to pre-pandemic levels, according to a recent study by the Council on Criminal Justice, murders and the number of gunshot wound victims both down more than 15 percent compared to 2024, and much lower than the 2021 peak.

[18:15:14]

And it's similar to nationwide decreases for what's expected to be the third year in a row, according to FBI data.

The Trump administration is already tying the trends to increased immigration enforcement despite this Minneapolis operation not starting until December of 2025.

J.D. VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: We're enforcing the immigration laws and getting very violent criminals out of our country, and, number two, because we're enforcing our criminal laws.

MARY MORIARTY, HENNEPIN COUNTY PROSECUTOR: It has nothing to do with crime going down because that was already happening.

JIMENEZ: Mary Moriarty is the chief prosecutor for Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis.

Your concern is this dynamic of fear is going to make it harder for you to prosecute cases, really?

MORIARTY: Yes. That's already happened. We've had witnesses who are immigrants, who are afraid to come to court because ICE is around this building, the courthouse. That means that witnesses that we may need to prosecute a violent crime are not going to be available to us and have not been available to us.

JIMENEZ: The at times chaotic dynamic has even been criticized by police chiefs in the area.

CHIEF AXEL HENRY, ST. PAUL POLICE: Can we find a way to make sure that we can do these things without scaring the hell out of our community members?

JIMENEZ: And to start the year, as Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara announced drops in crime, he worried about the increased presence of federal agents.

CHIEF BRIAN O'HARA, MINNEAPOLIS POLICE: The greatest risk to me is that there would be unrest or that there would be a tragedy

JIMENEZ: The next day, Renee Good was shot and killed during a confrontation with ICE agents. It led to even more agents deployed to Minnesota, more anger, more fear.

AMEZCUA: Sometimes when I get an Amazon package at home, my 12 year olds run to me, dad, dad, daddy, ICE is here. And I'm like, what? So, it was just an Amazon package.

JIMENEZ: He sees that fear as he delivers those meals.

AMEZCUA: Most people need that. They're alone all day, looking up in the window. So, we eat food, but we also give them food for their soul, you know, and let them know that we going to get through this.

JIMENEZ: Omar Jimenez, CNN, Minneapolis,

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: And our thanks to Omar Jimenez in Minneapolis.

My next guest is among the former FBI officials who told The New York Times that the bureau's director, Kash Patel, is making the United States less safe. He's going to lay out exactly how ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:20:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KASH PATEL, FBI DIRECTOR: I just can't say how thankful I am to be a small part of this and lead the FBI.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: FBI Director Kash Patel this morning touting the arrest of former Canadian Olympic Snowboarder and alleged cocaine distributor Ryan Wedding, who was on the FBI's most wanted list. Patel is now nearly a year into his controversial tenure leading the FBI, a bureau he'd never worked before. He, of course, had floated conspiracies about the FBI before his nomination.

The New York Times wrote a really powerful story. The New York Times Magazine, they spoke with 45 former and current FBI employees about how Kash Patel's drastic reshaping of the bureau's priorities are troubling him, troubling them, with many fearing that, quote, the FBI has become a weapon of the White House, and that the firings and the diversion of resources to immigration enforcement have left the country vulnerable to attack, unquote.

Former FBI Section Chief of the Intelligence Division John Sullivan joins me now. He's also a Democratic candidate in the race for New York 17th Congressional District. Thanks for being here. I appreciate it.

So, the first employee quote in the piece is from you about Trump's decision to nominate Kash Patel as FBI director. You say, quote, I assumed Congress would see how uniquely unqualified Kash Patel was for the job. I assumed the Senate would do its due diligence and decide not to confirm him, unquote.

When it comes to what's going on right now, how much of the blame do you place on Congress and the Senate?

JOHN F. SULLIVAN III (D), NEW YORK CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: I place all of the blame on Congress in the Senate. I think when we look at what's happening right now, whether it's, you know, the diversion of resources off of key cases that are so important to protect Americans and our national safety, what we're seeing right now, particularly by Republicans in Congress, is that they're not willing to hold Donald Trump and Kash Patel accountable. They're not willing to call them out and actually conduct the oversight that's absolutely necessary so that we can continue to protect the American people.

TAPPER: All right. Let me play devil's advocate. President Trump would say, look, the border was a real problem. There are a lot of people coming in that shouldn't be here especially, and including a lot of dangerous people. And so shifting resources to that is perfectly reasonable. How do you respond to that?

SULLIVAN: I think the border is a key area of concern, but the FBI, you have to understand, what we're seeing right now is not normal. The FBI was always an organization that followed the facts and followed the evidence. As an executive who worked in the criminal division, who worked on transnational organized crime, who's worked on child trafficking and human trafficking, there are key concerns that we have to address. But going after individuals here in our cities and in our towns based on nothing more than skin color is not how the FBI should be conducting investigations.

TAPPER: So, earlier today, Director Patel said that in 2025, the FBI was responsible for 67,000 arrests, which would be a 200 percent increase. Now, a senior executive quoted in The New York Times Magazine article said, quote, they're bullshit numbers, unquote, because the FBI is claiming ICE arrests as their own. An FBI spokesperson told The New York Times Magazine, quote, this story is a regurgitation of fake narratives, conjecture and speculation from anonymous sources who are disconnected from reality. They can whine and peddle falsehoods all they want, but it won't change the fact that the FBI under this administration worked with partners at every level and delivered a historic 2025.

Anyway, what do you think about this claim of 67,000 arrests?

[18:25:02]

SULLIVAN: I think the piece speaks for itself. I think that what we're witnessing now is the FBI is claiming statistics and arrests that are being conducted by multiple agencies at once. That's not historically how the FBI would identify and conduct those investigations and identify successes. It would be FBI-led investigations.

TAPPER: So, at the confirmation hearing, Connecticut Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal asked Kash Patel point blank about whether he was going to fire anybody at the FBI who had worked on former Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigations into President Trump. Here's a part of that exchange.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PATEL: No one will be terminated for case assignments,

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT: And I'm not going to accept that answer. Because if you can't commit that those FBI agents will be protected from political retribution, we can't accept you as FBI director.

PATEL: All FBI employees will be protected against political retribution.

BLUMENTHAL: They deserve --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Have all FBI employees been protected against political retribution by Kash Patel?

SULLIVAN: No, he is lying, and he continues to lie. I think what we witnessed after, you know, January 6th insurrectionists were pardoned by Donald Trump, putting criminals back on the street, but then the manhunt began inside of the FBI for employees, folks who worked for me, who worked on January 6 cases, to identify those individuals, making them feel less safe going to work every day doing their jobs, that then put the American people at jeopardy. Because what those individuals then spent part of their day was trying to find another job because they were worried about their safety and security.

TAPPER: On September 10th, when Charlie Kirk was assassinated in Utah, Kash Patel stirred some confusion on social media. He posted first that the subject for the horrific shooting that took the life of Charlie Kirk is now in custody. About an hour and a half later, he posted the subject in custody has been released after an interrogation.

From your perspective, what was going on here with Kash Patel and his honestly is kind of bizarre focus on social media?

SULLIVAN: Yes. This leadership from Podcaster Dan Bongino to Kash Patel have been really focused on social media and kind of getting clicks and likes, but what they haven't been focused on is the actual work. I have led so many FBI command posts after major events, like Charlie Kirk's murder, and what you need to do is be able to speak with your boss' superiors and say, we're looking at this individual or this individual. We're still figuring out all the key cases and pieces that bring it all together and know that that information isn't going to leave the room. But what you have in a director and a conspiracy peddler, that Kash Patel is, is he runs out of the room and immediately starts tweeting about what's being discussed, kind of in a working group setting.

TAPPER: Let me just read this from this excerpt. He and Bongino start talking about their Twitter strategy and Kash is like, I'm going to tweet this. Salt Lake, you tweet that. Dan, you come in with this, then I'll come back with this. They're literally scripting out their social media, not talking about how we're going to respond or resources of the situation, unquote. Really weird. I do recommend people read the story.

How are you feeling about how and whether the bureau is going to survive this episode, this period?

SULLIVAN: Yes. I'm very concerned and it's part of why I'm speaking out. It's not something I ever thought I'd be doing when I was working in the FBI sitting with you here today. But I really believe in the mission and the oath that I took to uphold and support and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Every man and woman who's working in the FBI right now took that same oath and they feel the same way about that mission. And so I am putting my faith not in the leadership of the FBI or the political appointees, but in the men and women who are going to work every day doing everything possible to protect this country.

TAPPER: All right. John Sullivan, thank you so much. Thanks for your service at the FBI.

As tens of millions of Americans brace for a massive winter storm, CNN has learned that FEMA has abruptly stopped the ongoing terminations of hundreds of disaster workers who could be needed for cleanup and recovery efforts. That reporting is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:30:00]

TAPPER: We're back with some brand new video. Snow is beginning to fall in the Texas panhandle. It's the beginning of what is about to become, at least according to forecasters, a monstrous winter storm set to impact two thirds of the United States with dangerous snow and ice.

Let's check back in with CNN's Brian Todd and Alexandria, Virginia, just outside D.C. Brian, Alexandria's expecting a good deal of snow and ice. How are crews preparing?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, they're preparing with real urgency as we've been told all along here. This is a very dangerous and multi-layered storm approaching the East Coast of the United States. It requires a complex set of operations to counter it. And this is where places like this come in. Check out the sheer size of this place behind me. We're at this place called the Mega Dome. It is a salt depot here in Alexandria, Virginia, run by the Virginia Department of Transportation. Just check out the size of this place that is a hangar, basically, that a passenger jet can fit inside of. You've got 33,000-plus tons of rock salt in there in that mountain of salt right behind me, and that's just one of the layers of countermeasures that they use to try to counter this storm that's coming. The first layer is actually the brine that they put down.

Now, the brining operation is done. That was done all throughout today and yesterday. They get the brine. It's salt and water combined from these containers behind me. Then they start laying it down on the streets, and, again, as I mentioned they've already done that. That's the first layer of operation. When the brine comes down, it looks like this on your streets. These streets that we all see on our streets as we go home kind of move around our neighborhoods ahead of these storms.

Now, the brine, according to a state official who I talked to, is just there as kind of a placeholder. It's there to keep the snow from sticking to the streets in the first couple of hours of the storm. And this official told us it's there to buy us time so that we can get these other elements out. The second part of that operation is the rock salt that I just showed you, and that's where they load it onto the trucks. They see that chute right there. The trucks come under that. They get loaded up there. And then they deploy out.

This is where they're going to deploy first. This is the beltway. This is 495, the beltway around Washington, D.C. They got to deploy here first and clear these main arteries. Then they do the secondary streets and the neighborhoods. They can't even start doing the plows, Jake, until the snow has accumulated about two inches. So that's just kind of the complexity of the operation it takes to counter this kind of storm. [18:35:00]

TAPPER: All right. Brian Todd in Alexandra, Virginia, for us, thanks so much.

CNN's Gabe Cohen is here live in studio. And, Gabe, you have some new reporting on how this storm might be impacting staffing for FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

GABE COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Look, Jake, the Trump administration and the Department of Homeland Security's overhaul of FEMA, that is already well underway. We've been reporting on it for months. But they have been ramping it up here in recent weeks. We have been seeing these terminations where they have been letting go basically every FEMA disaster worker whose contract has been expiring. We're talking about roughly 300 or so staffers so far in January, and it's raising a lot of concerns about having enough staff to be able to respond to disasters, like the storm that we're expecting in the next couple days.

But yesterday, something changed. Secretary Kristi Noem goes to FEMA, first time there, for a briefing on a storm. She gets briefed on this winter storm that's coming this weekend. And then in the afternoon, an email goes out across the agency letting them know that they are halting all of these terminations. At least for now, they're not going to be letting staffers go. We don't exactly know. Was it optics about letting disaster workers go during a storm? Was it a matter of the positions being -- the positions that are being lost? But we do know this administration's taking the storm very seriously. FEMA has opened up its response center that they operate. They have been deploying crews across the country and stationing a lot of generators, meals, water bottles, preparing for the worst here.

TAPPER: You also have some interesting reporting on guidance that FEMA was given about messaging for the storm.

COHEN: Yes, it's pretty remarkable. So, I've learned that Homeland Security officials have come to FEMA staff and told them to limit the use of the word ice in their public messaging and post social media posts when talking about the storm. The concern is obviously the connection between the immigration enforcement that's happening across the country, particularly in Minnesota. And what they're worried about here is that by posting something like watch out for the ice, that it's going to become an opportunity for a meme for internet fodder for a public ridicule against the Department of Homeland Security. So, they're asking FEMA staff, if you can, don't use the word ice, try to use the term, freezing rain.

But part of the problem here, as I talk to agency officials about this, is they're saying what we're talking about is ice. What we're talking about is saving lives.

TAPPER: Yes. No, when you say freezing rain, that makes me think, oh, I'll put on a raincoat. It doesn't make me think ice.

COHEN: Right. And what we're largely talking about, and I'm not a forecaster, but this is largely an ice event and a lot of states that I've talked to are saying what we're preparing for is destructive ice that could damage power grids, you know, cut power to a lot of homes and wreak havoc on roads. And it is pretty remarkable that Homeland Security is saying, please try to avoid using that word.

TAPPER: Because they're afraid of memes, meanwhile, lives are on the line, another incredibly idiotic story. Thanks so much.

President Trump says, the U.S. is moving a, quote, armada toward Iran just in case he decides to take military action against the regime. The son of Iran's former leader joins me in studio next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:40:00]

TAPPER: In our World Lead, President Trump says a major convoy of warships is headed toward Iran. He says that while he'd prefer not to use the warships to strike the country, he's not ruling it out.

Since massive protests against the current regime started in late December, thousands of innocent Iranian citizens have been killed, many more arrested. Iran has also been shut off from the rest of the world after the regime cut off the internet.

CNN's Jomana Karadsheh takes us inside what it's been like on the ground in Iran and in the dark.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): It was 8:00 P.M. on Thursday, January the 8th, just as these incredible images were emerging from protests in Tehran and other cities, Iran went dark.

Under the cover of the digital darkness it imposed, the regime launched one of the bloodiest chapters in the history of the Islamic Republic.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I saw the army and they were attacking.

I saw a shotgun. I saw heavy guns. They didn't allow many of the injured bodies to go to the hospital.

KARADSHEH: This protester spoke to us from an undisclosed location after leaving Iran. Kirash (ph) is not his real name, but for his safety, we're not identifying him.

He's one of the countless Iranians who joined the protests.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The blood was all over the street. Three bodies collapsed. A girl on my left hand, another girl just two steps, she was near me, and a guy who was like four meters away.

KARADSHEH: Kirash took to the streets again after a day spent into Tehran's largest cemetery were scenes like this played out, surrounded by grief, anger, and chaos.

He searched through the dead for the body of Nasim (ph), a family friend who was shot in the neck.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I saw two layers of dead bodies. In my eyes, I can say minimum, 1,500 up to 2,000 just in one warehouse and small bags. I realized that, oh my God, these small bags, they're children, many of them.

KARADSHEH: His harrowing account is consistent with other testimony and verified visual evidence collected by CNN and human rights organizations from various reported protest sites across the country, pointing to a widespread coordinated armed attack by regime forces, turning the streets of Iran into something that resembled a war zone.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They were shooting at us from the top of the building and the Ashrafi Esfahani Bridge.

[18:45:02]

They were aiming with lasers, and the shooters were shooting people in the face. They massacred people.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We started hearing gunshots and feeling tear gas from behind. In Iran, we call this the scissor. They sent forces to the back of the protests to start hitting people from the back and the front.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: From 12:00 a.m. Thursday night onward, the type of injuries changed. The live round started. I've never seen anything like this. The sound of heavy machine guns in the city is something you only see in movies.

JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is a regime that has never tolerated dissent, one with a long history of crushing protests violently. But this was like nothing anyone had ever seen before.

The regime has long used the narrative of a foreign plot to justify its crackdowns.

This time it had an exiled opposition and a U.S. president urging a revolt.

MAHMOOD AMIRY-MOGHADDAM, DIRECTOR OF IRAN HUMAN RIGHTS: I think that the regime has never been closer to a fall to a complete regime change. They are doing it for survival, but also to prevent more protests in the coming years. The aim is to traumatize a generation.

KARADSHEH (voice-over): The world may never know the real scale of the loss and pain as a scarred nation slowly emerges from the night Iran went dark.

Jomana Karadsheh, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE) TAPPER: Our thanks to Jomana Karadsheh for that report.

And my next guest is Reza Pahlavi. He's an Iranian opposition figure and the son of Iran's former leader, the late Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. His father was deposed in 1979 and fled the country following the outbreak of the Islamic revolution.

Thanks so much for being here. Really appreciate it.

REZA PAHLAVI, SON OF IRAN'S FORMER LEADER: Thanks for having me.

TAPPER: So you have called on the Iranian people to rise up and oppose this regime. A lot of Iranians are doing that. A lot of them are being killed by the regime. Are you confident that this uprising will work?

PAHLAVI: Jake, first and foremost, I must say that unlike previous campaigns and as a continuation of it, this time the people came to the streets because they have had it with this regime. It's a true revolution. But the regime, unfortunately, has started waging war against its own citizenry, defenseless people that were shot by military weapons. They are chasing them now in hospitals, finishing the job of wounded people, raping women in their homes.

The amount of brutality that has happened has been unprecedented. But the resolve of my compatriots is still there. It started from the bazaar in Tehran and quickly spread to the four corners of Iran. Millions of people came out, millions of people started protesting death to the dictator, asking for their liberty.

And this is a movement that will ultimately succeed. We had a stumbling block, which was the regime panicking, cutting us from the world by shutting down the Internet, making communication impossible. But the news has trickled out, and as of yesterday, when I spoke to a few of our political prisoners, they were telling us the amount of casualties that we thought would be not as much as was originally reported. But Tehran alone had over 15,000 people killed. And I think across the country it's well over 20,000, maybe even more than that.

TAPPER: Obviously, it's the fault of the regime, and we all hope that the Iranian people get the government they deserve and democracy and freedom. Obviously, it's the fault of the regime, all these deaths.

But do you feel any responsibility, having called for this uprising?

PAHLAVI: Well, they called me to step in. Millions of people chanted my name, asking for my leadership, for my return. And it is in support of the movement that we called for maximum togetherness. So, they are not spread as a crowd. And it started pushing back elements with the regime.

As a result of it, we started to see some initial refusal to go back to work. There were members of the police force who didn't show up to work. Some military elements, even the regime killed a few policemen who refused to engage with the people.

So, we already see the momentum shifting. The regime panicked and as a result created this blackout. But the momentum might have slowed down in terms of people being able to continue beyond the street. But we know that once the regime is hopefully targeted in terms of its force of repression being neutralized, if indeed, as President Trump announced, there will be some retaliation for them doing what they did to the people, that will give people another opportunity for them to finish the job in the end.

People are committed to do that. Millions of people have died. And, you know, the biggest message that they wanted me to convey to our viewers is that they are not fighting this fight for themselves. They are fighting for humanity and liberty all around the world.

The Iranian people who are unlike this regime has always been anti- western, anti-American principle. Iranians want to have the best of relationship with America. And we had it before.

TAPPER: And you know that there are a lot of Iranians who hate the regime, who are also critics of yours. And I want to give you an opportunity to respond to some of their criticism. One of them is that you say you want to unite the Iranian people, but you weren't able to keep a coalition of like-minded Iranians together at Georgetown. That group quickly disbanded.

[18:50:01]

Why do you think you're going to be able to unite the country?

PAHLAVI: Well, first of all, you have right causes and the wrong players. But when I was in Munich three months ago, we had a conference that had the widest spread and diversity of representation of its kind as part a unity movement. We had people from the left, people from the right, Republicans, monarchists, socialists, representatives of ethnic groups, representatives of religious minorities, athletes, artists that were all gathered there.

And the principle is very simple, jake, what are we united on in terms of the core principles.

TAPPER: Ending the regime?

PAHLAVI: Well, but there are four key principles that -- you said like-minded? What? How do we define it? First and foremost is Iran territorial integrity, which is very important. Number two is separation of church from state as a prerequisite to democracy. Number three is, of course, equality under the law of all citizens and individual liberties and all of these, so we can conduct free elections to the Iranian people who determine the outcome.

I'm stepping in as a leader of transition at their core. My job is to make sure that we can see this through. We have a plan for the post- regime collapse to stabilize the situation, allow maximum defections, keep the most of the bureaucracy intact so the country continues functioning and then prepare the grounds for the election of a constitutional assembly where whatever opinions people may have a chance to debate it and be presented with a constitutional project and then be ratified by referendum. TAPPER: On that matter of continuity and government. Last summer,

july, you announced that more than 50,000 officials from the military, from the Iranian government had submitted to a google form that you set up that they wanted to defect from the current regime.

Did you verify those numbers? Do those names? Is the number still 50,000? And where have those defectors gone? What happened to them?

PAHLAVI: It's more than that. Two days before the internet shutdown, we have over 100,000 people, new applicants to a platform that we had created a few months before. Adding to the numbers that had already started joining. Among them, you find members of the military, paramilitary, police forces, but also a lot of people who are in the civil bureaucracy, in working in ministries and so on and so forth.

Diplomats and others. And were beginning to see signs of more and more people, you know, refusing to go back to work or literally defecting. It is very important because it's part of our process. You see, one of the lessons learned from de-Baathification in Iraq was really a bad example of how you manage a change of regime. And in the case of Iran, you don't have the problem you saw happen there in the de- Baathification.

We are trying to be inclusive as much as possible of all those who can survive regime change and have a place in the future, except for the people who have their hands soiled with the blood of Iranians. And they will have an account in the court of justice at some point.

But the majority of them can survive that change and have a place for them tomorrow.

TAPPER: So lastly, sir, President Trump's position vis-a-vis the Iranian people, he keeps threatening us that he'll take action if the Iranian regime keeps killing innocent Iranians. They keep killing innocent Iranians. At one point he said, oh, I was told the killing stopped, but it hasn't.

PAHLAVI: Unfortunately. it hasn't.

TAPPER: Do you think what he's doing, his position separate and apart from the nuclear strikes, has been helpful? Is it beneficial?

PAHLAVI: It's the expectation of a nation because a lot of people took courage, in the words of a president who said, I'm not going to be another Barack Obama. I'm not going to throw you under the bus. And people took that very seriously.

And in fact, a lot of people now are hoping that this totally unfair conflict with the regime is massacring them, and they have no choice to defend themselves because they're unarmed. Something is going to tilt the balance in their favor.

And the best way to do that and save lives at the same time, is to strike the regime when they are the most vulnerable and at the same time, their instrument of repression. We're talking IRGC, we're talking instances that is -- collectively, their instrument of repression. But they can also be additional aspects to that economic, isolation of the regime.

And I think a lot of governments now in Europe are considering bringing even more sanctions on the regime. This is a time to act. I think the expectation of the people who have bravely gone to the streets, many of them have died, that they haven't died in vain. They expect the world this time beyond just condemnation and resolution, actually take steps to put the pressure on the regime.

TAPPER: So just to be clear, you're saying that you think its time for the U.S. and the West to act beyond just words with economic sanctions that are tougher, but also military strikes against the Revolutionary Guard.

PAHLAVI: There's no other way to help unarmed people that are facing this level of brutality that the regime has exerted against them. The only chance is to see a cavalry that arrives, and we can hold the fort up to a point. At some point, we need to get that air cover, and that will change the balance in favor of the people, hopefully will be able to liberate themselves.

TAPPER: All right. Reza Pahlavi, thank you so much. Appreciate your time.

PAHLAVI: Thank you, Jake. Appreciate it.

TAPPER: We have an update next on the troubling surge in measles cases in South Carolina.

[18:55:01]

That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Our last lead start in our health lead. The state of South Carolina has now reported more than 700 cases of the measles. On top of that, nearly 500 people are in quarantine, meaning they may have been exposed, and they do not have immunity.

In our world lead, free climber Alex Honnold is about to attempt a new, unbelievable climb, and this time it's going to be carried live on Netflix. The challenge is to climb the tallest building in Taiwan, a 101-story skyscraper without any ropes or safety nets. Taipei. Oh, I'm sorry, Taipei 101 is the 11th tallest building in the world, 101.

Coming up Sunday on "STATE OF THE UNION", New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, and Border Patrol Commander at Large Greg Bovino. That's Sunday at 9:00 a.m. and Noon Eastern, only on CNN.

"ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT" starts now. Stay safe. Stay warm. I'll see you Monday.