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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
New Video Shows Pretti Kicking Agent's Car a Week Before His Death; Trump Warns Minneapolis Mayor, You're Playing With Fire; Philly Prosecutor Vows to Hunt Down Wannabe Nazi ICE Agents. Krasner Calls ICE Agents "Wannabe Nazis"; Trump Says Omar Probably Sprayed Herself When A Man Attacked Her; Protesters Met with Tear Gas and Pepper Spray Outside ICE Detention Center in Dilley, Texas. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired January 28, 2026 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, the ICE debate intensifies as dramatic new video shows Alex Pretti clashing with agents 11 days before his death.
Plus, you're playing with fire. A threat from the president to the Minneapolis mayor sets off a chain reaction about the role of police.
MAYOR JACOB FREY (D-MINNEAPOLIS, MN): We have a job to do in the city of Minneapolis, and that job is to keep people safe.
PHILLIP: Also, he promised to take down the temperature.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: We're going to de-escalate a little bit.
PHILLIP: Just hours later, Donald Trump mocks the attack on Ilhan Omar.
And tensions boil over outside the detention center where a five-year- old boy is being held, as his health apparently suffers.
REP. JOAQUIN CASTRO (D-TX): His father said that Liam has been very depressed since he's been at Dilley.
PHILLIP: Live at the table, Scott Jennings, Cornel West, Neera Tanden, Joe Borelli and Ana Navarro.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York.
We begin with breaking news. A newly surfaced video shows Alex Pretti getting into a physical clash with federal agents 11 days before he was fatally shot. The family has confirmed to CNN that the man that you see in this video that was released by the outlet, The News Movement, is in fact Pretti. He has seen shouting at agents before kicking at their vehicle's taillights. The agents then stopped, exit their vehicle and tackled Pretti to the ground. A struggle ensues. But a few minutes later, Pretti gets up and a gun appears to be tucked into his waistband.
Now, it's unclear if the agents noticed it in this altercation, but the agents ended the confrontation there and decided to walk away.
Now, again, we don't know what took place immediately before this footage. Another video recorded by a local attorney shows more of the aftermath, including the agents turning around and leaving before deploying some type of smoke device at the protesters who were gathered there.
Now, the attorney also captured this brief interaction that he had with Pretti.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You okay? You okay?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm okay.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You okay?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm okay. I'm okay.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are we all okay? Are we all safe? We okay?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: But this new footage is intensifying an already heated debate in this country about ICE's presence on American Streets. MAGA Influencer Benny Johnson says the new video destroys a leftist hoax. He argues it proves Pretti was not an innocent bystander or legal observer. Instead, he was, quote, a violent agitator and a psychopath hell bent on attacking federal law enforcement.
And I think the question, though, in response to that is, does that have any bearing on what happened to him 11 days later?
JOE BORELLI, FORMER REPUBLICAN LEADER, NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL: Well, let's be clear. Benny Johnson's right. He's a violent psychopath who was hell bent on attacking federal law enforcement. We just saw that on video. I mean, he clearly spit at the law enforcement officer. He clearly was doing some sort of jujitsu kicks against the vehicle, which, you know, resulted in the vehicle being smashed and broken.
And I think I just want to point out as someone who does believe in the Second Amendment, and there was so much made about his firearm, responsible gun owners in the concealed carry community, in the gun community, no one who's a responsible gun owner provokes and escalates a fight. That is rule number one, if you are going to carry a firearm, is that you automatically lose every fight, you walk away, you don't escalate situations, unless not with law enforcement or with anyone else. He is someone who acted wildly irresponsible.
Now, fast forward 11 days, he did not, same video, the same concept. The video shows he did not pull a weapon at the time he was shot. So, I do, you know, commend DHS for putting these officers on modified duty. I think there needs to be an investigation of what happened. You're not supposed to get shot by police, right? That's not supposed to happen. And, clearly, there was some incident or some trigger, some cause that caused these officers to fire and there should be an investigation.
[22:05:04]
But the media narrative about this guy, that he was the second coming of the Lord and he was just this peaceful guy, that's disproven by that video, and Benny Johnson's right.
NEERA TANDEN, FORMER DOMESTIC POLICY ADVISER, BIDEN ADMINISTRATION: I think it's outrageous, honestly, that you just called this man a psychopath. You don't know what happened before this incident. We saw him kicking a taillight. The officers respond by looking like they're -- they do beat kind of the crap out of him onto the ground. And then what happens eight days later is completely separate from what happens here.
So, I think, honestly, with all due respect, calling this man who was killed over the weekend a psychopath just based on that is really, I just think, outrageous and wrong.
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, what we saw --
BORELLI: (INAUDIBLE) are you a psychopath too?
TANDEN: No. Well, then you'd be wrong about that too.
NAVARRO: And listen the descriptions we have gotten about Alex Pretti have not been a media narrative. It's been people who interacted with him. It's been people who were his colleagues, who were his patients, who were the children of his patients. Everything we've seen about him --
BORELLI: From the protesters? Is it fair --
NAVARRO: He was not a peaceful protester in the first video we saw. I think that was wrong. I'm against all violence. I think that's destruction of federal property and that was wrong. He could have been arrested. Maybe he should have been, and he wouldn't have been killed 11 days later. But let's take the two incidents separate and apart because they are separate and apart. The first video we saw, Alex Pretti acted wrong. The second video we saw, he was a peaceful observer who never brandished a gun, who did not act like a domestic terrorist, who acted nothing like a psychopath. He was brandishing a phone.
BORELLI: Are you allowed to interfere with law enforcement? I'm not saying if he would've stood on the sidewalk with a sign or with a camera, he would not be dead right now. But that's not what he did. NAVARRO: Listen --
(CROSSTALKS)
NAVARRO: Number one, I don't see him (INAUDIBLE). He was sitting -- he was standing in the middle of the street with car and directing traffic. He was not but. But, listen --
PHILLIP: What was it about his conduct that you think was illegal or whatever it was? I mean, he was standing in the street, so maybe he was jaywalking --
BORELLI: Close proximity, in contact with a local --
PHILLIP: But is he allowed to record what law enforcement is doing?
BORELLI: Yes, from a safe distance. You're not allowed to actually be --
PHILLIP: Okay. So, based on the video that you saw, was he at a safe distance?
BORELLI: No.
TANDEN: Yes he was. They walked up to him. So, he was in a safe distance.
PHILLIP: So, the video that I have seen --
BORELLI: And he should have complied.
PHILLIP: -- he actually was not even the person that they were interacting with at first. Hold on, Joe --
BORELLI: I stipulate the point that he shouldn't have died.
PHILLIP: Listen, I'm just saying, I think, to Ana's point, we have to take incident by incident, one thing and another thing, the incident where he actually lost his life, it's a real question. Was he doing something that was illegal? And it's not clear that he was. In fact, the federal agents, there were not even after him. They were after the woman who was also there. And when he stepped in front of her to help her up, that's when he interacted with law enforcement for the first time.
So, let me just say here, just kind of in response to you, this is what another perspective is from a conservative perspective. Erick Erickson says, guys, Alex Pretti was clearly an activist agitator in this clip. He was also disarmed by Border Patrol agents that killed him. The team sport insistence on dragging the dead man is kind of gross at this point. I understand pushing back against a narrative, but let the dead die. That's his perspective. Scott?
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. Look, I think the video that we've seen adds context to what he was probably doing over a period of time. I think the narrative has been that he was just an innocent protester or some sort of an observer. It's obvious he was part of some organized effort to show up where federal law enforcement was and engage in some way, whether that engagement was recording or blowing whistles, or whatever, or in the videos case kicking in the taillight of a car, he was obviously there to do something.
That doesn't supersede the need to have an investigation of the shooting. I support an investigation of the shooting. I will say, I think the investigation needs to be holistic. And I care more about just the shooting. I care about where did Alex Pretti come from, what part of a -- what group was he in? Was he part of any kind of a training organization?
I mean, I think what's going on in Minneapolis is more than just random people showing up to protest. I believe, and there's lots of evidence about this, that there are well-organized, well-trained and well-funded agitators who are showing up with the purpose of provoking these kinds of incidents so that they can then create the narrative that somehow ICE is out of control.
CORNEL WEST, AUTHOR, TRUTH MATTERS: No. But where you see professional agitators, I see courageous citizens who have a righteous indignation and a moral outrage when they're city -- and this is Princeton City.
[22:10:07]
Now, you know, the sign of the times, 1987, when it's being terrorized, it's being traumatized. Communities are being vilified and demonized.
Now, I come from a people who have been demonized and vilified and terrorized for 250 years in the American experiment. That's what it is to niggerize a dignified black people. Make sure that they are intimidated, terrified, full of fear, and not able to straighten their backs up. But thank God, the black freedom movement straightens our backs up.
Well, what we're witnessing, and this is why the larger picture is important here, we're at a -- we're right on the edge cliff in terms of the possibility of America sustaining itself as a social experiment in the best sense of just becoming an empire full of might and force. So, when you niggerize a whole country, you start treating all of your citizens the way black folk have been treated for 250 years.
So, from when I see the police killing these two precious folks, Sister Renee, and my dear brother, Alex, and I've had so many partners killed by the police growing up on the chocolate side of town, right, what has been the response? Thank God for Martin King, how do we learn how to love in the face of this hatred? How do we learn how to fight for freedom for everybody in all parts of town in the face of all of this tea? And America now has the blues, or you don't learn something from the best of the blues people, we are going to lose a democracy.
So, this is not just about meticulous details. We're talking about something huge at stake. PHILLIP: It does seem that we are at a critical moment where there's a real question about whether ICE needs to be reined in. That's a question being asked by Republicans and by Democrats. And if so, how? Let me play what Elizabeth Warren said about what Democrats need to do in this moment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA): Democrats are ready to reign in this rogue agency, but we need Republicans in Congress to stop this violence as well. And I know that there are Republicans right now who are seeing what we are seeing in Minnesota, and they know it is wrong. It is time to speak out. Silence is complicity. Grow a spine. Show some backbone. Being disturbed doesn't change anything.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Some Republicans are speaking out, whether it's Thom Tillis, or that candidate who was running for governor in Minnesota who dropped out of the race over this issue, to the top appropriator in the House who's basically saying, yes, we do need to reset the situation. Is that right? Is that the right place to be right at this moment? I mean, do we need to rethink what ICE is really doing in the streets of American cities?
BORELLI: Well, clearly, the president thinks there needs to be some recalibration, right? He replaced the leadership in Minnesota with Tom Homan, a change of sort of the direction at the top. You saw him pull back and asked for these DHS agents to be investigated.
Ultimately, though, the president's goal, and I think Tom Homan's mission is to get compliance in the jails, in the system -- in the prison system in Minnesota, right? This is not a crisis of anything but a crisis of cooperation, where, for the most part, you have other states where the number of ICE detainees is 10, 11, 12 times higher than in Minnesota where there is zero incident. Texas, more than ten times more ICE detainers in Texas, yet zero incidents. No one's getting shot.
PHILLIP: There are 200 undocumented immigrants, non-citizens in Minnesota prisons. Is that what you're talking about?
BORELLI: 1,361 detainers.
PHILLIP: That's -- okay. That's a -- hold on.
BORELLI: People that were actually arrested at some point and then released. I'm not saying who was in jail now.
PHILLIP: So, what exactly do you want the governor to do? You want the governor to go to those people's houses, take them out of their homes and hand them over to ICE? What would you like them to do?
BORELLI: An ICE detainer means, as they were arrested --
PHILLIP: Over the course of what period of time. Joe? BORELLI: Over the past year, I guess. I don't know.
PHILLIP: Well, I mean, don't you think that's relevant information?
BORELLI: It's working in Texas. In Texas -- okay. In Texas, they got 17,696.
PHILLIP: I'm just concerned about the factual information here. You're talking about a list of 1,300 people. There are only 200 non- citizens in the prisons.
The Hennepin County Jail, which doesn't cooperate with ICE, has a max capacity of about 600 people. So, where are these 1,300 people? How long have they -- has it been since they've been in some form of prison? And what exactly do you want Governor Walz to do about that?
BORELLI: I'm more familiar with here in New York, just being a New Yorker. Rikers Island has about 3,000 people at one time.
PHILLIP: Sure, yes. But I'm talking about Minnesota. What do you want the governor to do? Do you want the governor go door to door and pick up people who had been -- who had committed crimes years ago?
[22:15:03]
(CROSSTALKS)
I'm just saying let's not --
NAVARRO: State prisons and the county jail.
PHILLIP: Yes.
NAVARRO: Okay.
PHILLIP: But I think my point is -- here's my point real quick. This is important. You can't throw out that number and say there are 1,300 people that are in prisons and they won't let them have it. That's actually not true at all.
BORELLI: There are 1,300 people who were at one point detained by the police departments in Minnesota.
PHILLIP: At what point?
BORELLI: At some point that -- I forget what the statistics were.
PHILLIP: It could have been ten years ago. It could have been 20 years ago. At what point does --
BORELLI: Let's go to my statistics. In Texas, in this year, 17,696 people who are in police custody at one point were transferred to ICE. The state of Texas, though, the towns of Texas honor the ICE detainers, and 17,000 people were detained without incident.
PHILLIP: Hold on. I just want to know of the people with detainers, are they currently in custody of the state?
BORELLI: At some point, these 13,000, 1,300 people --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Argument is that --
BORELLI: But don't you understand? They were released. The whole freaking is that --
(CROSSTALKS)
BORELLI: You understand, right? These people were here illegally, committed some crime and then they were released.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Joe, don't get all worked up. All I'm asking is if you --
BORELLI: You're arguing that they're not in prison. I'm saying that's right, they were released. They should have been detained to ICE.
PHILLIP: Hang on a second. Hang on a second. The state prisons -- all right, hold on. The state prisons which hold, which holds a vast majority of people who have committed crimes --
BORELLI: Which is people after they've been convicted.
PHILLIP: Yes, which is a due process, if you've been committed --
BORELLI: An ICE detainer happened at the time of arrest --
PHILLIP: Hold on a second.
BORELLI: -- in the county jail.
PHILLIP: Hold on a second, Joe.
BORELLI: Yes.
PHILLIP: Just give me one second.
BORELLI: Okay.
PHILLIP: In the state prisons, they work with ICE. So, when you have committed a crime and you are convicted of that crime, they will call ICE and say, hey, this guy is in here, they're about to get out, come and get him. So, that is happening. The question I'm asking you is that if you are arguing that the rationale for this show of force is because the state is not cooperating with getting people who are in prison into the hands of ICE, you have to actually prove that those people are in custody. And you can't do that, and neither can the Trump administration can because many of them, most of them are not actually in custody. And they would have to do the very same thing that they're doing right now. They would have to go out and conduct targeted raid. And if they were to do that, no one would be complaining about that.
BORELLI: You gave an incredible speech about prison, right? We're talking about jails, people who are detained by police.
PHILLIP: I'm also talking about jails, Joe.
BORELLI: You said 300 people are in prison. They were convicted.
PHILLIP: There's 600 -- there's the maximum capacity in Hennepin County of 600 people. Where are all the people coming from?
BORELLI: 1,361 people were issued ICE detainers in Minnesota. And then were released --
PHILLIP: When?
BORELLI: -- by over the past year, whenever the fact was. If you give me a minute to Google it over the break, I'll get the answer.
PHILLIP: Joe, you have to actually have the answer to the question. The question is when. Because if they were released in the last six months, fine. If they were released in the last ten years, that's a completely different story.
BORELLI: This is a 2025 stat.
PHILLIP: It does matter.
BORELLI: It's a 2025 stat.
PHILLIP: We're going to -- listen, we have a whole hour to talk about a lot of this stuff. So, I'm going to --
BORELLI: But does it bother you that 1,360 people were released who have ICE detainers?
PHILLIP: Joe, listen, it really depends when they were and where, okay?
BORELLI: But you are admitting they were released from jail. That's my point.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Hold on, Joe. We'll continue this when we come back because this is an important point. This is the rationale for this whole thing. And the question is, is that really the fact of what's happening in the State of Minnesota?
Next for us, Donald Trump warns that the Minneapolis mayor is playing with fire. How Jacob Frey is responding to that tonight.
Plus, despite vowing to take down the temperature, Trump is mocking the attack against Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, and baselessly now accusing her of staging the attack against her.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, after previously calling for de-escalation, President Trump has a new threat for Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. He warns that Frey is playing with fire if the city officials don't carry out federal immigration law. J.D. Vance also jumping in, accusing Frey of telling Minneapolis Police not to help federal agencies.
But Frey isn't backing down. Here's how he responded during CNN's Town Hall tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FREY: We have a job to do in the city of Minneapolis, and that job is to keep people safe. We are going to do our jobs, not the federal government's jobs. We are required to respond to 911 calls to prevent murders and homicides and carjackings from happening. I want our police officers spending every single second focused on that.
So, are we going to enforce federal immigration law? No. We don't now. We haven't for decades.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Scott?
JENNINGS: Yes. Look, he's being a little disingenuous. They just want to in the jails. I mean, the White House has said all they want to do is get all the active people with warrants, people who are incarcerated and get them turned over for immediate deportation. They want to get a transfer of all criminal illegal aliens arrested by state and local police. They would like an assist in detaining criminal illegal aliens if it's warranted and --
PHILLIP: What does that mean? You want local police to go and detain --
JENNINGS: I don't know. How about if an ICE agent's being beaten with shovels by three illegal aliens? Maybe the police show up and help out.
PHILLIP: Hold on. I'm legitimately asking, is that what you're -- so you're talking about helping them in their interactions with the public or go helping them by going to actually detain undocumented immigrants?
[22:25:00]
JENNINGS: I think if an ICE agent is trying to detain an illegal alien and they come under attack, it would be good if the police would help.
Now, I talked to and interviewed Todd Lyons, the director of ICE, last week. He told me that he believes the Minneapolis police had been ordered specifically not to help ICE agents if they are being attacked. So, you have a law enforcement agency --
PHILLIP: He believes that or he knows that?
JENNINGS: He told me that's what was going on.
TANDEN: I mean, right now, they're being outnumbered. That's the safe end (ph).
JENNINGS: That's what he told me. And that's why also they had to send more agents, federal agents, to Minneapolis to guard the agents they had sent to do enforcement --
(CROSSTALKS)
NAVARRO: I spoke to a police chief, very experienced, respected police chief, today. And I asked him, could ICE be at the county jail? Because the state prisons, we all agree, is doing -- is putting a detainer, is handing them over to ICE. Could ICE agents be at the door of the county jail? And when an undocumented immigrant has served their time or is released, could they grab them? Yes. There's nothing stopping them from doing that.
BORELLI: That's what a detainer is. That's what we're all talking about. That's what an ICE detainer is.
NAVARRO: But why do you need a detainer if you can do that? And why do you make them flood the streets of Minneapolis with 3,000 agents.
PHILLIP: I don't think that's what Ana's saying. I think --
BORELLI: That is an ICE detainer. That is a detainer request being honored.
(CROSSTALKS)
BORELLI: Holding the person until ICE comes and pick them up.
NAVARRO: There's nothing stopping an ICE agent -- there's nothing --
BORELLI: Waiting at the front door hoping that an illegal comes out the door, I suppose.
NAVARRO: No. The names of the people who are detained in a county jail are public information. Anybody in the media can get them. Any of us can get those names. So, they could run those names, know who is here illegally, if there's anybody illegally, know when their sentences is up, and, yes, it would -- you know what? It would be a lot less costly to the businesses in Minneapolis, to the city of Minneapolis, to us as taxpayers, if they put two ICE agents at the door of the county jail than if they have 3,000 agents terrorizing and occupying an American city.
BORELLI: I'm not going to challenge anything you said. I'm going to agree with you.
NAVARRO: Good. BORELLI: I think you're absolutely right. You're absolutely right because you just described the process of honoring ICE detainers, which is fantastic.
NAVARRO: But what I'm telling you is it's not necessary.
PHILLIP: Joe, before you move on -- before you move on, let me just be clear. What you just said is not correct. A detainer -- hold on, or a detainer request, what that means is that what they're asking the county jail to do is hold the person past the point that they're legally allowed to be held so that ICE can come and get them. That is different from what Ana is talking about. She is saying when that person is being released, according to the law, ICE can just detain them once they leave the facility. They can literally be standing outside and detain them outside of the jail. Those are not the same thing. They are just not. So, I just want people to --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: So, go ahead.
BORELLI: Just to go on with the facts. In 2025, 4,855 ICE detainer requests were issued in Minnesota in 2025. Of that, Department of Homeland Security is saying 1,360 people are still in custody somewhere in the State of Minnesota. You said the number was 350 in the state prisons. I have no reason to doubt that. But that means there are another thousand in different counties, city jails that could be detained and through an ICE detainer.
PHILLIP: So, sure. We're talking about 3,000 federal agents in the city of Minneapolis. What you are talking about is the entire universe of criminal, undocumented immigrants in the entire state. That's like an apples and oranges situation. And on top of that, again, it matters --
BORELLI: But they got 17,000 in Texas, where they complied.
PHILLIP: Listen, it does matter -- as we were discussing, it does matter when those people were released, when those people were detained. Because, as prisons officials have said there, there are times when they call ICE and they say, hey, we've got someone come and get them, and ICE doesn't come and get them. And so they have to legally release those people into the population because you can't imprison people past their sentence in America, even if they are undocumented. So, there're some issues here.
I do want to play one thing because this is important. This is a very controversial statement that was made by Philadelphia's District Attorney Larry Krasner. He has a message directed at ICE, at the ICE officers who are out there doing enforcement, sometimes aggressively. Here's what he says is going to happen to them.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LARRY KRASNER, PHILADELPHIA DISTRICT ATTORNEY: This is a small bunch of wannabe Nazis, that's what they are, in a country of 350 million. We outnumber them.
If we have to hunt you down the way they hunted down Nazis for decades, we will find your identities, we will find you, we will achieve justice.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[22:30:05]
PHILLIP: Dr. West, I know you had another point you wanted to make, but I want you to respond to that. Is that appropriate for him to be saying at this moment?
CORNEL WEST, DIETRICH BONHOEFFER CHAIR, UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY: No, I think the language itself is extravagant, but I identify with the moral passion behind it. And this is what I would say to Brother Joe, because it's not just about numbers. You can use numbers to rationalize and justify terrorizing people and traumatizing people. Slavery was American law. Jim Crow was American law. U.S. Congress didn't pass a law against lynching black people until a few years ago.
So, it's not a question of because it's legal. If you have legality without morality, you just have gangster activity. That's part of what Trump's problem is. It's so gangsterized. But it's also true that when, in fact, you engage in your critique and when you engage in your condemnation, you don't want to engage in a characterization of those that don't give them a chance to make moral choices.
So once you -- so I think what Larry is saying is these folk are terrorizing people, we must fight. I identify with that. Wannabe Nazis? Well, see, that is a little different because I believe Trump does have deep, deep neo-fascist policies, but I wouldn't put that as synonymous with Nazism. Not at all.
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, there's people on the right who have, people like Joe Rogan, who have made comparisons to what's happening to the Gestapo. We have seen, now for weeks -- he's gone now, thank God. But we saw Gregory Bovino parading through the streets of Minneapolis and what can only be coats that I think he must have bought at some Nazi vintage stores, you know, embracing that narrative and exploiting that narrative.
Larry Krasner from -- whose video you just played is part Jewish. And I think that for a lot of Jewish folks and for a lot of folks who have seen those historical films, what we are seeing in America is shocking and it is reminiscent of that. I personally, I'm uncomfortable with the comparison. It's something for me -- the Holocaust is a unique horror in history and not something that we should throw lightly. But I'm not going to tell you that some of the things I have seen in America and happening in America, the same way Joe Rogan has seen it, are not reminiscent and don't bring back some of the same feelings.
PHILLIP: Scott?
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, this is highly inappropriate. No prosecutor in America should be doing that, let alone yelling it and about law enforcement officers. Look, this debate, there's a lot of words and a lot of talking around it. We have existing federal immigration law. We have law enforcement agencies, duly sworn officers that have been ordered by the President to go out and enforce those laws.
That's really all the debate is about here. And in most jurisdictions, these laws are being enforced quite amicably. There are no incidents. Transfers are happening. People are being deported that have a reason to be deported. It's just in this specific jurisdiction, people have decided that federal immigration laws shouldn't apply.
And now you have sort of radical Democrats around the country ramping this up even further by claiming that they're going to hunt down federal law enforcement officers as though they were not (inaudible) Eric Swalwell in California promising a reign of therapy becomes governor against anybody who's ever worked for ICE.
NEERA TANDEN, PRESIDENT AND CEO, CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS: I mean, I could not -- I could not --
JENNINGS: This kind of division and this kind of threat against people who basically signed up to enforce the law and do public service, it's outrageous and any Democrat ought to be able to sit here and say this is way over the line.
TANDEN: I mean, the idea that you're talking about Minneapolis as if it's just normal to have all these ICE officers who are, you know, separating five-year-olds from their families, going after two-year- olds, who had this violent altercation where a man is shot 10 times -- 10 times, and you're just acting like this is normal. These people are just doing what the President wants them to do.
Well, I think a lot of people are concerned about that. Of course, people shouldn't have -- it's wrong for a prosecutor to have rhetoric like Nazis, but it's actually also wrong to just say it's totally fine for the President to stick all these forces into Minneapolis. The public in the town hall you had before, you see people who are living in fear. They're not democratic activists.
They're moms, they're rabbis, they're Catholic priests who are worried about their community being torn apart and they are worried about it because we have an overwhelming show of force. Why is there an overwhelming show of force? There's less -- there's less illegal immigration into Minneapolis than there is in other parts of the country.
The reason we have is because the President himself said he was going after the Somali community. For Christ's sake, I'm sorry, we should all have some decency in this moment. Two people have died. We'll say, all this talk about law and order. There were three deaths in three people killed in Minneapolis, two by us ICE forces in just the last month.
So, I have to say, I think the real challenge here is law enforcement themselves. Chief O'Hara in Minneapolis, it's concerned that the ICE officers aren't trained enough. They're not trained like law enforcement and they're really anxious about the lack of public safety because of ICE, not because of law enforcement.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Yes, he did express -- he did express watching these videos and seeing a lack of training, seeing a lack of coordination even among the ICE agents themselves and that being a public safety issue. And look, to Neera's point though, right at this moment, there is actually quite a lot of bipartisan agreement about what she just said there --
TANDEN: A hundred percent. Rand Paul --
PHILLIP: - among Republicans and Democrats who --
JENNINGS: Bipartisan agreement about what?
TANDEN: That ICE is going too far.
PHILLIP: That what is happening in Minneapolis has gone too far and that the President needs to recalibrate. Those are the words of Republicans, to recalibrate the strategy around ICE and their activities. That is something that Republicans and Democrats agree on right now because I don't think anybody looks at what's happening in Minneapolis and says, oh, this is just fine.
TANDEN: Other than Scott.
PHILLIP: This is, you know, I mean, look, you can blame it on the sanctuary cities --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: I said Minneapolis is not fun.
PHILLIP: Minneapolis is not the only sanctuary jurisdiction in America.
JENNINGS: But it's the only city in chaos.
PHILLIP: It is not the only --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Hold on. Is it the only sanctuary city in America?
JENNINGS: No, but it's the only city in chaos.
TANDEN: Is it the only place --
(CROSSTALK)
TANDEN: -- three thousand forces?
PHILLIP: Is it the only place where Tim Walz is governor?
JENNINGS: Yes. PHILLIP: The only city where Tim Walz is governor? Really? No.
JENNINGS: Minnesota is the only state with Walz. Minneapolis is the only city with Frey.
PHILLIP: Listen, Minneapolis is not the only sanctuary city. There are sanctuary districts all across the country.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: I didn't say that it was.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: The only thing that is different about Minneapolis is that Trump sent 3000 ICE agents.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: They have Walz.
PHILLIP: That's the only thing that --
(CROSSTALK)
TANDEN: The American people think ICE is too violent.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: We got more ahead -- they have said that on the polls. Next for us, Ilhan Omar is responding tonight to President Trump after he called the attack against her, staged. Be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:42:29]
PHILLIP: Without evidence, the President is claiming the attack against Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar was staged as he mocks her. When asked about last night's assault, Trump called her a fraud and claimed that she probably sprayed herself.
So, I guess perhaps unsurprising that Trump had that point of view. It was also echoed by Laura Loomer, who we know has a lot of influence in this White House. She says, "This is the most staged thing I've ever seen in my life. I'm calling for an immediate investigation into whether Ilhan Omar -- "
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: Well, calling her a fraud, I think, is the nicest thing Donald Trump has ever said about Ilhan Omar because he has been using her as a verbal punching bag for years now. But, you know, to me, what's ironic about this, and it's just, you know, it's wrong. And what's ironic about it, though, is when Donald Trump had an assassination attempt during the campaign, there were French conspiracy theorists who claimed that it had been staged to help his campaign and help him win the presidency.
Something I think is insane. I saw no Democratic elected official amplify that and what the President of the United States did was call Donald Trump. What the Vice President of the United States did was call Donald Trump, check in on him and offer their solidarity and the investigation by the federal government.
It would be nice if Donald Trump instead of starting a conspiracy theory would do the same, would call up Ilhan Omar on the day he's saying he wants to deescalate things in Minneapolis, call her and say, hey, you know, we've had words. We may not be the best of friends, but what happened to you is wrong. And the federal government is going to investigate.
PHILLIP: Is that too much to ask?
WEST: No, it's not too much to ask, but I don't think we're holding our breath because Brother Trump is not going that way. For him, empathy, love, sensitivity to others, they actually are foals rather than intimate companions. But for me, the sad thing is that the American version of fascism will have white supremacy as its public face. So, Trump didn't say just something about her. All the precious Somalians are garbage.
Now, the German version of fascism had deep anti-Jewish hatred, its public face. Each society that degenerates into organized forms of greed and hatred and revenge have their own distinctive features. But in the United States, as we slide down the slope, the more greed more hatred, more revenge, and the rationalizations of it, then you can rest assured that white supremacy is going to be at the center of it.
[22:45:05]
But the corporate money and the military might will be at the back. That's why Martin King said, what, if we don't come to terms with racism, poverty, materialism, and militarism, America's over. It's spiritually dead. That's Martin King before he was shot. That's a challenge.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: So Scott, Capitol Police says the threats against members of Congress and their families are up 58 percent from 2024.
JENNINGS: It's terrible.
PHILLIP: Why is Trump pouring fuel on the fire?
JENNINGS: Look, he obviously doesn't care for her and she doesn't care for him. And I don't expect either of them to dial it down anytime soon. And we'll say this, I think anytime something like this happens, it's all of our responsibility to say that political violence and political intimidation is simply not acceptable. We can have debates and we're going to have that.
And look, this is, you don't want this. You don't want people believing that they can get away with it. Now this guy, I think, was arrested. That's a good thing. I'd like to learn more about him and learn more about what his motivations were. But --
WEST: Well, we do know that he said that Union soldiers ought to be compensated for liberating black people. So, that already -- that's a deeply white supremacist --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: So, we do know he's 55 years old. He has shared cartoons criticizing Omar. He's a Trump fan. He has changed his profile photo to Trump, Erica Kirk, et cetera, shared anti-trans content, et cetera. So, I mean, this is a picture of somebody who is on the right, who is obviously also a little bit deranged perhaps.
JENNINGS: Yes. One other issue that most people don't think about much, most of these elected officials have no security. There's virtually no security. We're used to seeing the President and high ranking people, they have security. Members of Congress, local officials, most people don't have security and they often are doing events in very unsecure locations.
And so, when things like this happen, you just have to remember these people, they're often -- they're often out in the open and all it takes is one crazy person.
PHILLIP: Yes, I mean, and look. I think it's relevant. I heard Ilhan Omar talk about how Nancy Pelosi gave her Capitol police security because of the threats against her, but also because she is targeted not just by random people online, but by the person who occupies the highest office in the land. So, that's a very different level of negative attention that she's been getting. And so, that's why she does have security in this instance.
JENNINGS: Does she have Capitol Police there?
PHILLIP: I don't know if those individuals were but she said that at one point when Nancy Pelosi was Speaker, she gave her Capitol Police security. Next for us, violent clashes erupt outside the facility where the five-year-old boy is being detained. And now, his father says that he is sick and depressed. We're going to discuss.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:52:24]
PHILLIP: Tonight, large group of protesters were met with tear gas and pepper spray outside of an ICE detention center in Dilley, Texas. It's the same facility that is holding five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, whose apprehension in Minneapolis sparked outrage. Now, after this photo surfaced of him being detained by ICE along with his father, Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro visited them at that detention center today. And here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REP. JOAQUIN CASTRO (D-TX): Liam Ramos should be released immediately. You can see from the picture that I posted that he was lying in his father's arms. His father said that Liam has been very depressed since he's been in Dilley, that he hasn't been eating well. I was concerned with -- you see how he appears in that photo with his energy. He seemed lethargic. He said -- his father said that Liam has been sleeping a lot, that he's been asking about his family, his mom, and his classmates.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, Ana, I have a four-year-old -- four and a half-year-old. I understand separating a child from their mother is, it's a form of emotional distress for a child of that age.
NAVARRO: Joaquin Castro has small children, as well. I was texting with him before coming on and he tells me he is extremely worried about the child's health, that the mother is ready and able to take custody of the child. I don't see the purpose of detaining this child and keeping him there. And this is a family who has, who's in the process of political asylum, who came into the country legally through the CBP app.
So, they did not cross the border illegally. They made an appointment. They came through legally. They applied for political asylum. It's been long-held policy in the United States that when you have a pending claim of political asylum, you are here legally. So, they detained folks.
They detained a child who was here illegally. He is now, as we see, suffering from health and mental issues. The mother is ready and willing and able and desirous of taking custody of him. There is absolutely no justification for having that child in that detention center a week after.
PHILLIP: (inaudible) respond to that?
JOE BORELLI, FORMER REPUBLICAN LEADER, NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL: Well, I mean, as DHS will tell you, the mother didn't open the door after the father fled the scene of the accident.
[22:55:00]
But just to go back on some numbers, this is a very sad case. Obviously, any time a child is caught up, whether you agree with what law enforcement is doing, essentially it's the actions of adults that have resulted in this child being in this situation. The Biden administration had 90,000 children who were here as unaccompanied minors in the system. Since 2025 --
(CROSSTALK)
TANDEN: He didn't have a parent here.
(CROSSTALK) BORELLI: -- January 20th, 2025 -- since January 20th, 2025, there were 650 kids. So when we talk about children caught up in this bad immigration policy, I think we should be cognizant that the Biden administration's immigration policy was far worse. Eleven thousand kids got placed with unvetted sponsors.
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: Can I ask you something? Do you agree that little Liam -- do you agree Liam Ramos should be released?
TANDEM: Yes, he should be back with his mom.
BORELLI: No, I'd love -- just put him back with his mother.
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: I don't know why the mother --
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: -- in the first place.
WEST: There are hundreds and hundreds --
BORELLI: Not 90,000.
WEST: -- of precious Liam Ramos right now who are separated from their parents. That's the point.
(CROSSTALK)
TANDEN: In the first Trump term, there were tens of thousands of unaccompanied children in the first --
(CROSSTALK)
WEST: But if the colossal failure may have both parties. We're not talking about one party versus another. These are more issues that go deeper than all of this talk about --
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: Scott, you think Liam Ramos will be released and be reunited with his mom?
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: We are at the end of the time that we have for today. Everyone, thank you very much for being here. We'll be back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:59:56]
PHILLIP: Tonight, Bruce Springsteen is using his voice and guitar to support the anti-ICE protests in Minnesota. Listen.
[23:00:03]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, AMERICAN SINGER, SONGWRITER AND GUTARIST (singing): Then we heard the gunshots. And Alex Pretti lay in the snow dead. Their claim was self-defense, Sir. Just don't believe your eyes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Springsteen says the song is dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, innocent immigrants and the memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Thank you for watching "NewsNight". "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
