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Vance: Renee Good's Death "A Tragedy of Her Own Making"; MN Officials Say Feds Blocking them from Investigating Shooting; Witnesses Describe Seeing ICE Agent Shoot Renee Good; Trump Blasts GOP Sens. Who Voted with Dems to Limit War Powers; Sen. Chris Murphy (D- CT) Discusses About the Vote to Wage War with Venezuela; Trump Threatens to Ban Big Investors from Buying Homes. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired January 08, 2026 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:22]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Fallout from the fatal shooting of a woman in Minneapolis by an ICE agent. Furious members of the community facing off with federal agents, as Vice President J.D. Vance offers a forceful defense of the agent's actions.

And the Senate votes on a measure that could limit President Trump's ability to wage war, as the White House outlines its plans for the future of Venezuela.

And one day before a new jobs report gives us a clue to the state of the economy, new data shows Americans are feeling increasingly hopeless about their chances of finding a new job.

We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to CNN News Central.

The White House is standing behind the ICE officer who shot and killed a mother of three in Minneapolis. While taking questions at the White House, Vice President J.D. Vance said the agent is protected by absolute immunity and claimed Renee Good's death was a, quote, "tragedy of her own making." Here's part of what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: That very ICE officer nearly had his life ended, dragged by a car six months ago, 33 stitches in his leg. So, you think maybe he's a little bit sensitive about somebody ramming him with an automobile? What that headline leaves out is that that woman was there to interfere with a legitimate law enforcement operation in the United States of America. What that headline leaves out is that that woman has -- 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.

If the media wants to tell the truth, they ought to tell the truth that a group of left-wing radicals have been working tirelessly, sometimes using domestic terror techniques to try to make it impossible for the President of the United States to do what the American people elected him to do, which is enforce our immigration laws. The President stands with ICE. I stand with ICE.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Meanwhile, Minnesota officials now say the federal government is blocking them from taking part in the investigation. CNN Law Enforcement Correspondent Whitney Wild is on the ground in Minnesota.

And Whitney, we've seen protesters and federal officers clashing today. What are you seeing?

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Right now, we are just steps away from a vigil that has formed at the very spot where Renee Nicole Good spent her last moments on earth. We spoke with a woman who is a resident of this area who talked to us about how she feels when she hears the narrative from the Department of Homeland Security. Here's more from a Minneapolis resident.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAM COSTAIN, MINNEAPOLIS RESIDENT: The fact that they try to suggest that this murder could be justified by somebody trying to stop them from an abduction is just -- it's so offensive. They are the violent actors. They are the ones bringing chaos and violence to our community. And the fact that they would do anything to suggest that this was a justified murder is so offensive to thousands of people in Minneapolis, thousands of us.

And I'm sick to death that these agents of Trump and Kristi Noem are here disrupting our community. We love our neighbors. We love our immigrant neighbors. We want them here and they should get out and let our immigrant neighbors stay.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILD: There is a real problem of trust in Minneapolis. People here say they simply do not trust the narrative that they're hearing from DHS. They're highly concerned about the fact that the federal government is not allowing their state officials to take part in the investigation. And I'll walk you through how that happened.

Yesterday, according to the Attorney General Keith Ellison, yesterday, there was an agreement where state officials would work with the federal law enforcement to investigate this case. That changed by that afternoon. Now, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office here in Minnesota is taking it over completely. The Department of Public Safety Commissioner saying earlier today that he felt like without access to key information that the federal law enforcement simply will not share, they cannot do the investigation that would meet Minnesotan standards. Back to you.

KEILAR: And Minnesota officials say they have been barred from taking place, obviously, in that shooting probe. Is there any way they can conduct something, some kind of probe on their own? Or is that just out of the question?

WILD: We -- you know, reporters in this press conference today really pushed the DPS commissioner on that. And while he stopped short of saying they absolutely will not do it, they made very clear that again, without access to that key evidence that federal law enforcement won't share with them, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to conduct a thorough investigation. Brianna.

[15:05:05]

KEILAR: All right. Whitney Wild, live for us in Minneapolis. Thank you.

And I'm joined now by Minneapolis resident Aidan Perzana, who was a witness to yesterday's shooting and said he woke up to the sounds of honking and whistles, which he says is the way people in the neighborhood alert residents to ICE's presence.

Aidan, we mentioned those honking -- the honking and the whistles. Do you have a sense of exactly what officers were doing on the street and whether community members were, you know, what were they trying to do? What were they there for?

AIDAN PERZANA, EYEWITNESS TO MINNEAPOLIS ICE SHOOTING: I don't -- I don't have much of a sense. You know, I got to the -- got to the window in my home, so I couldn't -- I couldn't hear very clearly. There was some sort of commotion. What I saw was the -- Renee's vehicle, the Honda, partially blocking the road. It is a quite wide one one-way street, so there was room to go around.

KEILAR: And so, where were you looking at her from in relation to her car, from the front of her car, from the back of her car, from the side?

PERZANA: From the -- from the back of her car, a little bit to the driver's side. I was on the second floor, so I had a slightly elevated view, but she was -- from where I was facing, she was to the front and slightly to the right of me.

KEILAR: And so, we've seen a video roughly from that angle that you're talking about. Can you tell us what you saw transpire before that video starts rolling?

PERZANA: Yes, so when I got to the window, like I said, her vehicle was in the street partially blocking one of the two lanes, and there were six or seven ICE vehicles, presumably ICE vehicles, unmarked black and white SUVs and trucks up and down the street in all sorts of lanes at all sorts of angles. So, I'm -- I'm not sure what was going on at that point in time, but there were two men on either side of Renee's vehicle, one by the driver's side door, one by the passenger side door, and there was some back and forth going on there.

I couldn't hear it inside, but my neighbors said that there were conflicting orders, some people telling her to move and get out of the way, some people telling her to get out of the vehicle. And I watched as a third man approached the vehicle and started pulling on the driver's handle door -- the door handle, sorry, at which point she backed up, changed direction, turned to the right. And from my vantage point there was a gap between the officers that she was aiming for. So, it looked to me like she was attempting to escape, not attempting to hit anyone.

And so, you -- tell me, you -- you see her shot as she's -- as the car is moving forward. Take me through that, what you saw ...

PERZANA: Yes.

KEILAR: ... and what you were thinking.

PERZANA: Sure, so I was primarily focused on the man pulling on the -- the door handle when I heard the shots, but I was sort of aware of the general location of all of the people in relation to the vehicle and didn't think that, you know, it didn't come into my mind like, oh, she's going to hit him.

Obviously, I was surprised to hear the shots and -- and looked to the -- to the shooter at that point and watched as he sort of calmly started approaching the vehicle after it -- it crashed.

KEILAR: Yes, he -- walking sort of slowly, at least in the video that we saw. What -- what stood out to you about after Renee Good's car crashed? What stood out to you in the minutes after that? Because some of it we haven't seen ...

PERZANA: Yes, so ...

KEILAR: ... and some of it we see on video.

PERZANA: Yes, I was only, you know, partially dressed. I tried to get to the window pretty quickly when I heard everything. And so, I stayed watching the scene for a little bit longer just to sort of see what the next -- the next thing that would happen was. And while ICE agents approached the vehicle, they didn't pull her out of the car or -- or -- or anything. She was left in there and it didn't seem like anything else was -- was progressing at that point.

[15:10:03]

So, I -- I went and got fully dressed and missed a few minutes of -- of action and -- and went outside, but it didn't seem like the scene was substantially different by the time I'd gotten outside a few minutes later.

KEILAR: Aidan, how are you reflecting on -- on what you saw and what happened, especially as this has garnered so much national attention?

PERZANA: Well, I was on the ground and gave a statement to some local reporters pretty quickly, so I think I've been reached out to by -- by many reporters who have been trying to, you know, spread what I saw as far as I can. So, just -- that's been -- that's been a lot. So, I haven't -- haven't processed too much. Yes, but -- but shock, dismay, you know, this is -- this is a terrible, terrible injustice.

KEILAR: Aidan Perzana, thank you for being with us and -- and sharing with us what you saw.

PERZANA: Yes. Yes, thanks. KEILAR: Still to come, President Trump outlining his plan for

Venezuela, why he says U.S. control of the South American country and its resources could last for years.

Plus, in a surprising move, a group of Republican senators voted with Democrats to advance a resolution that would limit the President's war powers in Venezuela.

And then later, the White House moving to ban Wall Street from buying single family homes. Could it help make houses more affordable? We'll have that and much more coming up on CNN News Central.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:15:52]

Today, a surprise rebuke of President Trump in the Republican-led Senate. Five Republicans voting with Democrats to pass a resolution allowing a future vote on limiting the President's war powers in Venezuela. The President is fuming over this decision, saying Republicans should be ashamed, calling for five GOP senators here who were involved to, quote, "never be elected to office again."

The passing of this resolution today, setting up a showdown next week as the Trump administration increasingly points to long-term U.S. involvement in Venezuela. We're joined now by Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut.

Senator, thanks for being with us.

These five Republicans who joined this vote, have you spoken to any of them after the President rebuked them?

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): No, I -- I haven't spoken to them personally since the President's tweet. I mean, listen, this is the state of the modern Republican Party. If you cross Donald Trump, if you get out of line with the cult, you are no longer a legitimate Republican. That's never been the case before. Listen, it's never easy to cross your party, but you know, when I've voted or worked against President Obama or President Biden's agenda, I never got a public rebuke or a promise that my party's president was going to work against me in the next election.

I mean, this is just a true thing that the President has engaged in a military action in Venezuela that's illegal. And I'm glad that five Republicans have acknowledged that enough so that we'll have a debate next week to have the whole Senate vote in a pretty, you know, remarkable way to say that if the President wants to start a war in Venezuela, then he needs consent of the people of this country. And that in the Constitution has to happen through a vote of Congress.

So, again, signs that Republicans are starting to understand that it's important to constrain this lawlessness. Only five Republicans, but that's a start.

KEILAR: Democratic Senator John Fetterman actually kind of surprised Democrats when he voted for this, but he raised some pretty big questions to our Manu Raju yesterday, who was trying to understand if the legislation would hypothetically block an intervention like the capture of Nicolas Maduro, would it?

MURPHY: Well, if you need the invasion of the U.S. military in order to capture a subject of a warrant, then yes, you need an authorization, of course, by the United States Congress. This was a massive military undertaking that has not stopped by the way. Right now, there is an ongoing blockade, an embargo, a naval blockade of Venezuela that is unquestionably by itself an act of war. But you combine that with all of the boats that were being shot at over the course of the last several months and the ground invasion, even though it was temporary of Venezuela, there is no question that that is an act of war that has to be authorized by Congress.

And that's because often presidents get us into wars that the people don't want, and the people don't want this war. The people don't want an ongoing entanglement in Venezuela, one that the President is basically promising right now is going to last for the entirety of his administration. What they are saying is that they are going to run Venezuela by taking their oil and using the oil as ransom for the next three years.

The American people want Donald Trump running this country. And instead, half of his day and half of his top deputies' days are going to be filled with running a foreign country.

KEILAR: Fetterman also invoked you in -- in his comments. I want to play these.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN FETTERMAN (D-PA): Every Democrat, whether it's Joe Biden or Leader Schumer, or whether Dick Durbin or Murphy, they've all said, you know, he needs to go. And now I think that seems to change. Why? I mean, why can't we as a Democrat just say, hey, I think it's a good thing. And in all the Venezuelan communities, our nation all celebrating this.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: (INAUDIBLE) the Democrats have shifted their tune because Trump is president.

FETTERMAN: I mean, what else is it?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: By he there, Fetterman is referring to Maduro.

[15:20:02]

What do you say to that?

MURPHY: Yes, I mean, it's a pretty sort of wild thing to say, right? Of course, I think that Maduro is the illegitimate president of Venezuela. That doesn't mean that I support an invasion of Venezuela to remove him. I don't want Putin in power either. That doesn't mean that I think the President has the ability to invade Russia without congressional authorization.

So, just because you think that a leader overseas is a bad person or is illegitimate or is a dictator without the consent of the governed does not automatically mean that you must support a president invading that country to remove him. And frankly, I've been pretty consistent about this. So, the idea that this is just because Donald Trump is in office just doesn't hold up to the facts.

In fact, I didn't think that President Obama's intervention in Libya was legal. I called for Congress to take a vote on that measure. I didn't think that President Obama nor President Biden's intervention in Yemen was legal without a vote of Congress.

So, if you actually check the facts, there have been a handful of -- of us that have been very consistent about opposing U.S. military intervention abroad under Democratic and Republican presidents if it's not authorized by Congress. Senator Kaine is one of them, by the way, who's the senator that brought this resolution before the Senate.

KEILAR: Yes, I do want to ask you that, because this has -- this has been sort of an issue, right? If -- if Democrats -- this has been the question, well, if Democrats do oppose the Maduro regime, what's the big deal, as you spell it out there with your answer? But in that regard, the remaining regime is sort of -- it's the Maduro regime without Maduro, right. And to your concerns about that, knowing that the CIA assessment about whether the opposition could actually stand on its own and govern Venezuela and keep things stable, factoring into the President's decision to keep the Maduro regime minus Maduro in power. You know, what do you think about that? And how are you sort of -- now that we are where we are, how are you wrapping your head around that, knowing that the opposition allowing Venezuelans to, you know, self-govern, there are a lot of challenges in that and actually could create a lot of instability?

MURPHY: It doesn't feel like the Trump administration put any thought into what happens the day after they took out Maduro. They are now relying on supporting a new dictator of Venezuela who thus far has been just as -- just as if not more repressive than Maduro was. Already there are reports by your own reporters on the ground in Caracas of new attempts to try to suppress political dissent, new efforts to round up anybody that might cause trouble for Delcy Rodriguez.

This idea that Trump has that we are going to micromanage the country of Venezuela, that's what they're proposing to do. What they're saying is that we're going to take all their oil every single day and we're going to tell them that we're not going to give you your oil back unless -- we're not going to give you the revenue from your oil back unless you do everything we say in how you run your economy, how you run your military, how you run your law enforcement, how you run your government. That's nation building. That's what we historically get wrong time after time.

And so, this is likely going to go wrong in the long run. It's going to foment extremism inside Venezuela. And in the end, the Venezuelan people are still being run by a dictatorship. So, I don't understand what the United States got out of this. The drugs will keep flowing to Europe, not to the United States because Venezuela doesn't send drugs here. The people of Venezuela will still be oppressed and the taxpayers of the United States of America are going to be asked on an ongoing basis for the next three years to spend hundreds of billions of dollars securing and running a country that isn't their country.

KEILAR: Just really quickly before I let you go, can the U.S., as you put it, micromanage Venezuela without ultimately there being more U.S. boots on the ground?

MURPHY: Well, if we open -- reopen our embassy there, we are going to have to have a pretty massive military presence. Normally, when we have an embassy -- you know, we have a small deployment of marines, you know, 12, 15 marines. We're going to have to have hundreds, if not thousands, of U.S. military personnel just to secure U.S. diplomats at the embassy.

So, if we're opening an embassy, there's no doubt that we're going back in with a military presence, a military presence that will make us a target. But just remember, this is not just about the military. This is about what your White House is spending its time on. You know, now, the White House is going to be spending part of every day, sometimes the majority of every day, running Venezuela instead of running the United States of America.

[15:25:00]

People in this country are suffering. Health care premiums are going up by double digits right now as we speak. Kids are hungry because of the cuts in food stamps. Prices are going up. And now we're doing nation-building again.

So, even if you don't need a hundred-thousand troops in Venezuela, there's still a cost to the American taxpayer by having the Trump administration so focused on running another country instead of running this country.

KEILAR: Senator Chris Murphy, thanks for being with us.

MURPHY: Thank you.

KEILAR: And ahead, President Trump says he's taking steps to ban some investors from buying homes. Could it help make homes more affordable? We'll have that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:29:42]

KEILAR: President Trump says he wants to stop Wall Street from buying more single-family homes. He says he's taking immediate steps and was calling on Congress to back the push. For more on this, let's bring in CNN Senior Reporter Matt Egan. Matt, explain why the President would take this route and the impact that it could have on the housing market. Well, Brianna, this is all about the American dream of home ownership and how far out of reach it feels right now, especially for young people.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)