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Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA) On Movement To "Abolish ICE" That Is Gaining Traction Among Some Democrats; Inside Trumps' Decision To Hold Off On Military Strikes On Iran; Medical Groups Sue To Block CDC's Revised Childhood Vaccine Schedule. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired January 16, 2026 - 07:30   ET

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

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[07:30:30]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Breaking overnight new clashes between anti-ICE protesters and federal agents in Minneapolis as President Trump threatens to invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy U.S. troops to the city.

This ongoing immigration there has led some Democrats in Congress to heighten their calls to abolish ICE. Here are just a few examples. Ayanna Presley, of Massachusetts, saying, "...for many years, I've been calling for the abolishing of ICE." Shri Thanedar, of Michigan, says, "ICE is totally out of control, and this week I intend to introduce a bill to abolish ICE." And Rashida Tlaib, of Michigan, says, "Abolish ICE now. Renee Nicole Good was the mother of three children."

With us now is a member of the Democratic leadership, Congressman Pete Aguilar, a Democrat from California. Thanks so much for being with us.

What do you think of these calls to abolish ICE?

REP. PETE AGUILAR (D-CA): Well, what I think is that our members are reflecting what they are hearing back home in their communities. And people are scared. People are frightened. People are concerned that U.S. citizens are getting scooped up or that U.S. citizens could lose their lives protesting in disagreement with ICE.

The Department of Homeland Security funds ICE. They receive an amazing amount of money -- too much money from our perspective. They do good things. Homeland Security investigations has been good in the past. The Coast Guard, TSA. There are things under Homeland Security that help the American public.

But what ICE is doing right now, running around the streets picking up folks with no regard and hurting our communities is destabling our economy, it's destabling our communities, and it's wrong.

BERMAN: Do you think abolishing ICE is the right way to react?

AGUILAR: No. I think we need to reform what ICE is doing. We are Congress. We control both the power of the purse and accountability. Donald Trump clearly does not want to hold ICE accountable. His own FBI will not investigate the murder of Renee Good. I mean, these are terrible tragedies that the American public sees. But what we need to do is reimagine how we spend resources within that agency and have robust accountability and oversight for their operations.

BERMAN: OK. How do you do that? How do you hold ICE accountable with funding? Is this something you'd be willing to shut the government down over?

AGUILAR: No. And clearly, Republicans are the ones that want to shut the government down and they continue to talk about this.

What we want to do is we want to fund Homeland Security to do the right things. But it's very clear in the one big, ugly law that Donald Trump signed ICE received even more resources to carry out these activities. His own Homeland Security director won't come to Congress. I mean, like, these are just general accountability measures that we want.

But they need body cameras. They need to actually turn them on. How about ICE has actual training? Right now new recruits are going through an expedited training process, so we have no idea if they're actually trained to be -- to use these firearms.

Those are the types of things that number one, put our community at risk, but also what Democrats are concerned about, put local law enforcement at risk as well.

BERMAN: President Trump, yesterday -- he issued a series of somewhat vague proposals to deal with health care in the United States. Not a ton of specifics. One of the things he wants to do is sort of fund health savings accounts type thing so people can pay for their own insurance. He did not call for the extending of the enhanced Obamacare subsidies.

But is there -- where is there ground for you to work with the president based on his new proposals?

AGUILAR: Well, it's hard to find common ground with our Republican colleagues and President Trump because they, themselves, created this crisis. They took a trillion dollars out of our health care system with their big, ugly law. So it's kind of hard to see with a straight face that now they want to add a few dollars back into the program.

Health savings accounts are great for people who have resources. For people who have money and want to put money away for their health care it's helpful. It doesn't help folks who are struggling in this economy trying to make ends meet and having to decide whether they pay for their prescription drugs or whether they pay their rising utility bill. Those are the things that we're concerned about.

There is common ground. There is pharmacy benefit manager reform bipartisan bills. There are bipartisan bills that if the president was interested in lowering the cost of health care he could work with Democrats on. This president, time and time again, does not choose that. BERMAN: I want to ask you about the future of the Democratic Party. David Plouffe, who was Barack Obama's campaign manager and helped run Kamala Harris' ultimately campaign last time around, has an op-ed in The New York Times where he basically is trying to sound the alarm and saying Democrats are in trouble -- not necessarily for 2026 but for 2028 and beyond. He says that changes need to be made and they need to refocus.

[07:35:15]

One of the things he says is he's calling for people running for Congress to basically say they will not support the current leadership in Congress, of which you are a member right now.

He says, "Call for new leadership and say that if elected, they wouldn't support the current crop. We saw in 2024 the hunger for more independence from the Democratic status quo. People want change, everywhere."

What do you think of Plouffe saying that people running for Congress should say they will not support you and others in leadership?

AGUILAR: Well, I support reading a lot of ideas and I'm interested in how people feel about the Democratic Party, obviously, and this is someone who is spent time within the party.

Our members are focused on one thing. Our House Democratic Caucus is focused on providing accountability and oversight to the Trump administration. We can do that by winning back the House in November of this year. Hakeem Jeffries, as Speaker of the House, will lead that effort. That's what we're concerned about. Hakeem has the support of Democrats in Congress.

We are going to continue to talk about both providing oversight and accountability to the Trump administration as well as talking to the American public about what we will do if given an opportunity to govern. Lowering the costs that people face. Addressing the housing crisis and the health care crisis that the Trump administration created. Lowering utility bills that people are getting crushed with. Gas and groceries. Those are the basic expenses that people are concerned about.

Republicans in Congress have no solutions to this.

BERMAN: So Democrats shouldn't run against leadership?

AGUILAR: Democrats will do whatever they need to do. Democratic candidates will do what they need to do in order to win, and we support that. What we are talking about is outlining a real agenda that Democrats can support, that the public will support, and I'm confident that Hakeem Jeffries as speaker will lead that effort.

BERMAN: Congressman Pete Aguilar of California. Great to see you here. Congratulations on Kyle Tucker. Go sign Babe Ruth and Willie Mays next.

AGUILAR: Go Dodgers.

BERMAN: Go ahead.

AGUILAR: Absolutely. Go Dodgers.

BERMAN: Thanks so much -- Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: And there's that.

Also new this morning we are learning how close President Trump came to ordering military strikes on Iran. A source tells CNN as the regime is cracking down on mass protests, the president, this week, was disturbed by the planned execution of one of those protesters, Efran Soltani.

After seeing videos of past Iranian executions in a late-night Situation Room meeting Tuesday, President Trump appeared on the verge of greenlighting and calling for a limited military operation. So, Trump administration officials were somewhat surprised when the president then, on Wednesday, pulled the U.S. back from that, claiming that the killing has stopped and adding this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And there's no plan for executions or an execution or executions. So I've been told that by good authority. We'll find out about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: White House officials say, still, they are not ruling out military action going forward. So a pause, I guess, we could say, on making that decision.

Joining me right now is CNN political and global affairs analyst -- of course, with Axios as well -- Barak Ravid.

Barak, you've got great new reporting -- you have for days now. What are you hearing about, first and foremost, why the president seemed to pull back on his decision to strike Iran?

BARAK RAVID, CNN POLITICAL AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST, GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT, AXIOS (via Webex by Cisco): So as far as I know from my sources, Trump never made the decision to go for a strike. He never gave the order and then pulled it. I think he was very close to giving the order.

On Tuesday, in that evening meeting in the Situation Room, Trump basically gave a bit more homework to his team because I think he was not happy with the current plans they were proposing. And it was not clear, as far as I understand it, at the end of the meeting when he's going to give the order.

And what I heard after that meeting is that people thought OK, maybe Friday night. Maybe over the weekend. I did not get the sense that -- while everything was ready on Wednesday for a strike if the president gave the order, I did not get the sense that he was really going for it -- the order. And so I think he wanted more time. That was my understanding of Tuesday's meeting and everything that happened after.

Another factor in this was that in his call with Prime Minister Netanyahu -- Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu on Wednesday, Netanyahu said we need a few days because we need to prepare for, you know -- you know, in our defensive measures -- in our possible offensive measures if Iran attacks Israel and Israel wants to retaliate.

And there was this diplomatic engagement between the U.S. and Iran on Wednesday over this -- the issue of executions that I think sort of when you put all of it together gave Trump the off-ramp to say all right, I'm going to take another few days to think about it.

[07:40:10]

But I don't think that a strike on Iran is off the table at all. This could be a pause, and I think we could be in exactly the same place within days.

BOLDUAN: Yeah. He's definitely still getting that message and pressure from some in his close circle that a strike is the way to help those -- send help -- as he says he's going to send help for the protesters.

Also, your latest reporting just out this morning is that the director of Israel's Mossad spy agency is in the United States today for talks about the situation in Iran. Tell us more about what you're -- what you're picking up there.

RAVID: Yes. So Israeli spy chief David Barnea is going to meet today with White House envoy Steve Witkoff in Miami. I -- it is still unclear to me whether Barnea will also see President Trump in Mar-a- Lago over the weekend. Um, I do not rule it out.

And, I mean, I think in previous times in that kind of situation where Israel and the U.S. were in close consultations over Iran in -- you know, in previous times in history the Israeli prime minister would send the head of Mossad who is in charge of addressing the Iranian issue -- he would send them to meet the President of the United States and brief him personally on the situation. So while I don't have information at the moment that he's going to see Trump, I do not rule it out.

And I think it's interesting -- this visit is interesting on, you know, both from the standpoint of maybe a U.S. military action in the coming days and weeks and, on the other hand, if the U.S. now, when things de-escalated -- if the U.S. resumes diplomatic talks with Iran. We heard Witkoff yesterday say -- giving four terms for such a deal with Iran. And I think the Israelis would want to weigh in with the Trump administration on whether there are really going to be negotiations. And if there are going to be negotiations, what are going to be the red lines?

BOLDUAN: Yeah, the negotiation over what?

It's great to see you, Barak. Thank you very much for your reporting as always -- John.

BERMAN: All right. This morning encouraging news for people hoping to buy a home. Mortgage rates have now fallen to their lowest level in more than three years.

CNN senior reporter Matt Egan is with us now. This is good.

MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Yeah. Look, this is exactly what first-time homebuyers want to see -- mortgage rates moving decisively in the right direction.

So the average 30-year-fixed is now 6.06 percent. That is the lowest level since September of 2022 and it's basically a full percentage point lower than at this point last year.

Now, it's telling that we're kind of celebrating six percent mortgage rates because as you --

BERMAN: Yeah.

EGAN: -- remember, after COVID -- I mean, you could get a mortgage for under three percent for a few months there. But then we had the inflation crisis, and the Fed had to spike interest rates so high that mortgage rates -- they almost hit eight percent on average nationally.

So yes, this is a step in the right direction because when rates were as high as they were -- as you can see in 2023 there at almost eight percent -- when they were that high that was really pushing the American dream of homeownership out of reach.

I've talked to so many young people who are so frustrated because they're renting and they don't want to rent. They want to buy but they feel like they can't, in part because of the high borrowing costs.

And let me just show you how this is helpful for people when they're doing their monthly budget. So let's just say you're buying a $500,000 home. You're putting 20 percent down. A year ago, your monthly payments were almost $2,700 for principal and interest. Now they're around $2,400.

Now that might not sound like that much. It's about a $260 difference. But over the course of a year you're talking about $3,000 less in interest. Over the course of a loan, it's over $90,000. So that's huge, right? That's less money going to the bank and more for everything else in life.

Now all of this comes after the White House has really started to focus more on this issue of housing affordability, right? The president wants to ban large institutional investors from scooping up single-family homes.

And significantly, he announced plans to have Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy $200 billion of mortgage bonds. And experts are saying that those efforts from the president -- they're already helping to drive down mortgage rates -- which, of course, is encouraging.

BERMAN: Yeah. And again, it's great that it's lower than it was a year ago --

EGAN: Yeah.

BERMAN: -- and great it's the lowest level in three years. Six percent -- for people who have that kind of muscle memory it's still a lot higher than it was --

EGAN: Yes.

BERMAN: -- for a number of years -- not just around COVID there. But maybe it'll keep going down and that'll be truly good news.

Matt Egan, great to see you. Thank you very much.

BOLDUAN: Mortgage muscle memory.

[07:45:00]

BERMAN: You like that?

BOLDUAN: You love alliteration and you're so good at it.

BERMAN: Marvelous, magnificent.

BOLDUAN: All right. Coming up for us -- Matt, you don't -- sorry you have to suffer through this.

BERMAN: Mango.

BOLDUAN: Mango? Sorry.

Coming up for us, snow triggering a dangerous 30-car pileup -- 30-car pileup in New York in the winter weather. The nightmare is not over.

And Dolly Parton with Queen Latifah. How the country icon is celebrating her 80th birthday.

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BOLDUAN: A legal battle brewing now over the future of childhood vaccines. Six prominent medical associations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Public Health Association -- they say they will be asking a federal judge to reverse recent changes to the CDC's childhood vaccine schedule. The groups arguing that the new guidelines coming out from HHS, which removed recommendations for vaccines like hepatitis and meningitis, were made without new scientific evidence.

[07:50:25]

The lawsuit is also trying to block an upcoming meeting of the CDC's vaccine advisory panel that set those new guidelines.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also recently replaced, you'll recall, the entire board with new appointees, some of whom have publicly identified themselves as anti-vax. Joining me right now is Dr. Georges Benjamin. He is the executive

director of the American Public Health Association. Doctor, thanks for being here.

Why now? Why take legal action now? What do you want to see happen? What are you asking the judge?

DR. GEORGES BENJAMIN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AMERICAN PUBLIC HEALTH ASSOCIATION: Well Kate, we're very much concerned about the safety of our kids. What they've done is they've basically removed the easily availability of these vaccines for these kids.

We're concerned about not only what they did but also how they did it. They did it in -- they basically went into a backroom, wrote up a piece of paper, put it out as science, and then used that to justify the removal of these well-proven, safe and effective childhood vaccines.

BOLDUAN: The response from HHS to your lawsuit -- a spokesperson giving a statement to CNN Wednesday called this "...attempts to hinder this administration's work through procedural and legal challenges while trying to preserve a broken status quo."

To that you say?

BENJAMIN: I say that the goal of the Department of Health and Human Services should be to improve the health and well-being of our kids. This is not about process. This is not about administration. This is about the health of the American people, and they are failing in that effort.

BOLDUAN: Doctor, if the eventual result is a judge saying you might disagree, you might not like it at all, but the changes are under the purview of HHS and RFK Jr. is in charge.

What do you think that is going to mean?

BENJAMIN: Well, you know, obviously, we will appeal it. But what we ultimately believe is that all of the physicians in this country are going to follow the old guidelines because we know they're safe and effective. And so while these are recommendations that the federal government has, they're just recommendations. And I think the concern we have, of course, is that it does create standard and it creates enormous confusion.

You may also remember that one of the rationales they did for changing these guidelines was to restore trust, and all they've done is created more confusion and totally undermined the trust that we have in vaccines. And that's going to result in less people getting vaccinated and ultimately more people getting sick, and some people may even die.

BOLDUAN: I spoke with -- when the change to the vaccine schedule had just been announced, I had someone on from Johns Hopkins who I've spoken to many times, and he said the confusion is one of the biggest issues. And he said the end result, he fears, is really catastrophic for children's health. One bit, though -- and the president said this when he was announcing these changes on that day -- is the administration does note that the -- that the vaccines that are now not recommend, they are not banned. They are still available if parents want these vaccines for their kids. And the administration says that they will still be covered by insurance.

Does that lessen the blow that you fear is coming?

BENJAMIN: Not really. You know, there's a big difference between recommending something and making something optional. You know, I've practiced medicine for a long time. I've been in the health policy world for a long time and that's a truism. The difference between recommending something on a national level so it's consistent and then saying well, maybe it's -- you don't really it, but go check with your doctor to make sure that you need it or not, results in less people getting vaccinated.

And by the way, that only protects you and your kids, but it protects grandma, it protects your neighbor's kid when we have so many unvaccinated kids.

Look, we have these huge measles outbreaks.

BOLDUAN: Yeah.

BENJAMIN: We have these huge pertussis outbreaks. All those kids are unvaccinated. And while they kept those on the schedule, they took off flu in the middle of one of the worst flu seasons we've had in years.

BOLDUAN: Yeah. CNN has just posted a new piece about a mother who just lost her 4-year-old daughter to the flu -- just reminding us once again the flu can be and is very deadly still no matter how healthy you are.

We do know that there is a hearing scheduled around this lawsuit in early February and we will be following this very closely.

Dr. Georges Benjamin, thank you for coming on -- John.

[07:55:00]

BERMAN: All right. This morning new video shows brazen thieves holding up a Manhattan store at gunpoint with about 40 customers inside. This is a Pokemon store -- a newly-opened Pokemon store who was having its grand opening party. No one, luckily, was injured here. The owner says the robbers got away with $100,000 worth of merchandise. Look at that -- everything just smashed. No arrests yet.

In Upstate New York, a winter storm blamed for a 30-vehicle pileup. This happened on I-81 south of Syracuse. Multiple people were injured and rushed to the hospital, several with broken bones. Cars and trucks rammed into each other in the snow and ice. The chain reaction crash involved three tractor-trailers.

New video out of Ukraine. A worker is shoveling snow when a Russian strike explodes just feet away. You can kind of see it there in the bottom right-hand side of the screen. The strike happens, she kind of looks away for a second, and then she goes back to work.

The mayor of Lviv, where this happened, called her to thank her for the hard work, saying, "Everyone in Ukraine has been captivated by your courage." He then joked, saying, "I know you need to clean but safety first."

New music coming from Harry Styles. The former One Direction singer is releasing a new 12-track album in March called "Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally." I have to say I love the album title.

BOLDUAN: Great.

BERMAN: Isn't that a title?

BOLDUAN: Great title.

BERMAN: That's -- I was going to say that's what we should call CNN NEWS CENTRAL, but it might raise questions.

All right. His last release, "Harry's House," scored three Grammys, including Album of the Year.

And not to be outdone by Harry Styles, Dolly Parton has a new collaboration out this morning featuring Miley Cyrus, Lainey Wilson, Queen Latifah, and Reba McIntyre. The song is a new version of her 1977 hit "Light of a Clear Blue Morning."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DOLLY PARTON, SINGER-SONGWRITER: Singing "Light of a Clear Blue Morning."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: I mean, just 100 percent awesome. And proceeds will benefit pediatric cancer research at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, which Dolly Parton is a big supporter of.

And this is ahead of her birthday. She turns 80 on Monday. Dolly says she wrote the song when she was searching for hope, and 50 years later that message still feels just as good.

BOLDUAN: Oh, you.

BERMAN: I do. This is great.

BOLDUAN: It is great. That actually gave me chills. That's the first time I was hearing it. I mean, those big kind of collaborations -- like those voices together always just, like, oh -- they do something special.

BERMAN: If you can't get behind Dolly Parton, you can't get behind anything. BOLDUAN: It's un-American.

BERMAN: Exactly.

BOLDUAN: It's un-American --

BERMAN: Exactly.

BOLDUAN: -- if you can't get behind Dolly Parton in everything she is and represents.

BERMAN: I'm just going to walk this way.

BOLDUAN: You go that way. I'm going to go this way, OK?

Here we go. Right now, a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers led by Sen. Chris Coons, the Democratic senator from Delaware -- they are -- that group is on its way to Denmark -- a direct response to President Trump's continued and mounting threats of taking over the Danish territory Greenland.

Ahead of the trip, Sen. Coons was on the show with us just yesterday saying that he wants to, in his words, "bluntly assert that we do not think threats against a trust NATO ally are constructive or necessary."

That is some of the group that is headed over there now.

CNN's Nic Robertson is in Greenland for us. As we know, you've been telling some really important stories of the view of people on the island of all of this swirling around about them. What are you hearing about this visit?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yeah. Look, I'm sure the people of Nuuk would love to see Sen. Coons and his eight- member congressional team come here into Nuuk, but they will be feeling very good about the tone of this message -- a message to Denmark of wanting to deepen these strong -- already very strong historic economic security diplomatic relations that the two countries have. They want to embrace the message. The shared understanding, if you will, that Denmark and these senators have in the United States about sovereignty, about self-determination. This is music to the ears of the people of Denmark.

It's not clear that they are going to be able in this one visit and what they hear from the Danish change the mind of President Trump, but it is certainly going to set another narrative -- another U.S. narrative for the Danish people and for the people of Greenland.

I'm standing outside of Denmark's Arctic Command here. And we've seen over the past couple of days an increased number of international troops arriving here -- French, Norwegian, Fins, British, Finish, and Germans are coming as well. It's a tiny, tiny footprint so far, but the plan of this -- these early arrivals is to map out the way in the -- in the coming weeks that they can have a very big NATO military presence here. And it's going to send also a message to President Trump that NATO is capable of providing security in the Arctic in and around Greenland against the threats that President Trump says exist.

So there's a lot happening here to send messages to the White House.