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Numbers on Deportation Program; Leah Hood is Interviewed about ICE and Protests in Minnesota; Trump Sends Letter to Norway; Prince Harry Battle with Daily Mail; Gen Z Bets on the Stock Market; Roblox Faces Backlash. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired January 19, 2026 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00]

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: Exactly right, John. This -- we're talking about a specific poll question here, and that is the deportation program in particular when it comes to immigration. And these numbers have just completely flipped. This was such a strength for the president of the United States.

The net approval rating on Trump's administration program to deport immigrants who are in the country illegally, it was plus 18 points at the beginning of his presidency. Net approval rating. That is very, very positive. It was one of the most popular things in the Trump administration agenda.

But now you come over to this side of the screen. Look at that. That's a -- over a 25-point switcheroo in the negative direction. Now the program is way, way, way underwater at minus eight points. And among independents, John, it has gone from plus 18 points in the positive, all the way down to negative 20 points. The Trump administration and Trump in particular has lost the center of the electorate when it comes to a key component of his administration's agenda, and that is to deport immigrants who are in the country illegally.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Now, what the president and others have maintained from the beginning is, oh, we're prioritizing people here who have criminal records that are here illegally. Do people believe that anymore?

ENTEN: No. No, they don't. And I think one of the big reasons why we've gone from plus 18 to minus eight is the Trump administration has lost the folks in terms of what their actual agenda is, what they are prioritizing here.

OK, the Trump administration is prioritizing deporting dangerous criminals or others. You go back to June, the majority of Americans, 53 percent said the Trump administration was prioritizing deporting dangerous criminals, compared to just 47 percent who said others. Come to this side. What do we have now? A complete switcheroo. Now what you see is the majority of the American people believe that the Trump administration is not prioritizing deporting dangerous criminals. In fact, they're prioritizing deporting others at 56 percent. Just 44 percent of Americans now say the Trump administration is prioritizing deporting dangerous criminals.

And I think, John, that is a big reason why, a big reason why we've seen that shift in terms of the net approval rating on the deportation program is because at the beginning of the administration, hey, the folks were saying, yes, we want to get rid of folks who are dangerous criminals, but they don't necessarily want to be prioritizing getting rid of other folks, which is what we here.

BERMAN: Inside this number you may have the new Joe Rogan comments, the Zach Bryan song. That may be living in that area right there where they don't like where the priorities are right now.

Our poll found last week that Americans don't think that the president is focused on the right thing.

ENTEN: Yes. Yes, that is what our poll found. And that is what, in fact, the CBS News/YouGov poll also found, John. Look at this, the Trump administration is too focused on deporting immigrants here illegally. Back in February of 2025, it was just 43 percent. Now it is 53 percent. They think the Trump administration has taken their eye off the ball. They're focusing too much on this deportation program compared to 74 percent who say that the Trump administration is not focusing enough on lowering prices. And that is a very dangerous thing because that's the reason why the American people really elected Donald Trump was to lower prices, and they think that he's taken his eye off the ball on that and is, in fact, too focused on deporting those who are here illegally. And that is very bad politics.

BERMAN: Harry Enten, great to see you this morning on what I know -- I know is a difficult morning.

ENTEN: Go Bills.

BERMAN: Thank you very much.

Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Also this morning, 1,500 active-duty soldiers are on standby for possible deployment to Minneapolis, waiting right now for the order to go in that could come from the president. At the very same time, Governor Tim Walz is also putting at the ready the Minnesota National Guard. The weekend proving -- this past weekend proving that frigid temperatures not stopping the protests, not slowing operations there and not slowing the clashes between protesters and federal agents. The tensions leading to at least three hotels now closing down. Demonstrations also in -- demonstrators also interrupted church services on Sunday, where an ICE official served as a pastor. On that, the Justice Department is now promising criminal charges are coming.

Joining us right now is Leah Hood, a Minnesota school teacher who is among a growing group of local residents banding together to help to patrol their own streets and to alert others when ICE is nearby.

Leah, thanks so much for waking up to speak with us. I want to talk about those kind of community -- kind of the

neighborhood watch patrols in just a minute. But on the news of what kind of the city could be bracing for, 1,500 U.S. soldiers put on standby, possibly to deploy to Minneapolis. The ICE agents already outnumbered the local police department by multiples. I mean, what do you think that is going to do to the situation if U.S. soldiers now deploy?

LEAH HOOD, PATROLLING MINNEAPOLIS NEIGHBORHOOD AMID ICE SURGE: Well, first, thank you for having me and especially thank you for your continued coverage of the state sponsored terror campaign against the citizens of Minneapolis and Minnesota more generally.

[08:35:06]

What that absolutely and unquestionably will do is escalate an already very dangerous situation unnecessarily at -- and we're paying for it. We're -- our tax dollars are paying for our communities and our neighborhoods and our schools to be terrorized by our own government.

BOLDUAN: And I also mentioned that the governor has mobilized the state's National Guard. I mean they're -- the way it's described is they're staged and ready to respond, not yet deployed. I'm curious if you think that that -- if you would like to see the state's National Guard deployed. Do you think that they could actually help bring some calm and order to this situation?

HOOD: You know, I'm not really here to speculate on that. But I will say that I have the highest degree of confidence and trust in Governor Walz, a fellow teacher. And I certainly hope that if our National Guard is deployed in our own streets, that the individual guard members will be committed to protecting and defending Minnesotans against the attacks by the federal government, rather than escalating an already really dangerous situation here on the ground.

BOLDUAN: Yes. You've joined a neighborhood kind of watch of sorts, kind of patrolling a local elementary school to alert the community when ICE agents come nearby, near the school.

HOOD: Yes.

BOLDUAN: It seems this is happening more and more around the city. Talk to me why you are doing it, what impact you think or hope it's having.

HOOD: Yes. Thank you. The fact is that for many weeks now, night and day, ICE is targeting our schools and the surrounding areas. At a -- at a fundamental level, every American and person of conscience should believe this and be committed to this. But particularly as an educator here in the Minneapolis area for almost 20 years, I want to get the message out to the country and beyond today that children -- children deserve and have the right to be able to go to and from school safely and without fear. And that is the travesty of what is happening here, completely unnecessarily and often unlawfully on the ground in Minneapolis, in Saint Paul, in the metro area and in many cities and communities in greater Minnesota as well. That is not happening right now. The federal government is not allowing children and their families, and my colleagues, teachers and other educators, to travel unimpeded, safely, to and from schools, elementary schools, and places of work on a day to day basis.

ICE agents have already attacked and kidnaped several students, parents and other family members of students and my colleagues, other educators, here in Minneapolis on school property or very, very close to school property. ICE agents are regularly circling our schools and city bus stops and city bus routes that many students and families and educators here take to and from school and work every day.

As a teacher, as well as a neighbor, it is important to me to literally physically show up right now to defend, protect, support and demonstrate care to the children of Minneapolis, to my neighbors, and to my colleagues during this time of state-sponsored terror.

[08:40:00]

Children deserve and have a right to be able to go to and from school safely and without fear.

BOLDUAN: Leah, thanks. Thank you for coming on and talking about this. The lieutenant governor, when the lieutenant governor was on with us earlier, talked about how troubling it was, one of the circumstances, I think it was at Roosevelt High School, that had just happened maybe possibly the day prior, that they were highly, highly concerned about.

HOOD: Yes.

BOLDUAN: Thank you very much for coming on. I appreciate your time.

HOOD: Yes.

BOLDUAN: John.

BERMAN: Breaking overnight, extraordinary new insight into President Trump's thinking on Greenland. The president sent a letter to Norway's prime minister in which he linked his threats to take over Greenland with the fact that the Norwegian Nobel committee did not grant him last year's Nobel Peace Prize.

With us now is retired Major General James "Spider" Marks, our friend. He is the head of geopolitical strategy at Academy Securities.

And, Spider, how does something like this land overseas? All these European leaders now, and officials, have been meeting, trying to figure out how to deal with the United States on this issue. And then they see this letter about the Nobel Peace Prize to the prime minister of Norway.

MAJOR GEN. JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS, U.S. ARMY (RET.): Yes, it doesn't land very well. I mean when you look at policies like this, or at least moving in this direction, the potential of embracing some type of a policy, I think many would say why it's being done makes sense. The United States needs to -- should have a much more enhanced relationship with Greenland, albeit we have one established in 1951, an agreement that allows the United States to have military access and kind of essentially, in my terms, provides cooperation between those two, one autonomous nation, or autonomous entity to Denmark and the United States. So that can be identified and say, yes, this this is a good deal.

But when you look at how the president and this administration is addressing the possibility of enhancing that, that gets very problematic, in my mind. I think cutting to the chase, the United States is not going to use military power to embrace Greenland or move Greenland in a direction more favorable toward the United States. And again, we already have a favorable relationship. Let's not harm that.

But provocative language like this really gets our allies moving in a direction of hazarding what's going to happen to NATO if the United States suddenly says, OK, this is more important, Greenland's more important, this course of action is more important than our relationship to NATO and NATO will atrophy. It'll become something entirely different than it is right now if the United States is not a part of NATO. So, you can connect those dots pretty quickly.

BERMAN: Yes, let's drill down on that last part you were just saying there. Do the rewards from U.S. control of Greenland, do they merit the risks and the potential damage being done to NATO?

MARKS: Well, the run is not worth the slide in the case of a military operation against Greenland. That's why I think it's -- it's off the table. I mean provocative language will always be out there. I mean this is kind of a negotiating tactic. So, I would say with confidence, the United States is not going to use military force against Greenland.

Trying to acquire Greenland in a more -- in a tighter relationship, certainly there are options. Look, we got Seward's Folly right, 1867. We bought Alaska. Let's go buy Greenland. We can do that if they want to -- if there's a seller, we can buy it. Don't know the situation regarding that. But certainly there are other relationships.

Iceland was a part of Denmark as well until 1944. And they became independent. Became a member of NATO. That's a potential path for Greenland as well.

So, in other words, there are options well below the threshold of military operation. Your question is, would military operation obviate a NATO as we know it today? Yes, sure would.

BERMAN: And that would be an enormous risk, even if -- and maybe even the mere suggestion of it could do things to NATO that maybe the United States long term would not want to see happen there.

Major General James "Spider" Marks, always great to see you. Thank you so much.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Also happening right now, Prince Harry is back in a London courtroom, and this time he seems to have brought some backup. The duke of Sussex, along with stars like Elton John, Elizabeth Hurley, are taking on the publisher of "The Daily Mail" in a high-stakes trial. They're all alleging a criminal campaign of illegal spying that they say included planting listening devices and even stealing medical records. The publisher calls it preposterous. Harry is expected to take the witness stand even this week.

CNN's Salma Abdelaziz is live outside the Royal Court of Justice in London with much more.

What's happening? What have you learned?

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is a star-studded trial, Kate, that can shape the future of the media in the U.K.

[08:45:01]

On one side, as you've said, of this battle line is Prince Harry and six of this country's most famous faces. And on the other side of the battle line is the publisher of one of this country's most popular newspapers, "The Daily Mail."

We did see Prince Harry arriving in the court just behind me here earlier today. I know we have footage to show you of that. His appearances in the U.K. are extremely rare. And he says that is because his privacy has been violated in the past.

We also saw the actress, Elizabeth Hurley, arriving alongside her son. Inside the courtroom was packed with press, with celebrities, with lawyers. And it was the lawyer for Prince Harry and these other plaintiffs that include Elton John and his husband, the actress Sadie Frost, Elizabeth Hhurley, as I mentioned, and others. Their lawyer gave his opening argument today, saying that he is accusing or they are accusing, rather, the publisher of "The Daily Mail" of engaging in criminal activity to illegally obtain information about these celebrities. They are accusing the publisher, Associated Newspapers Limited, ANL, of hiring private investigators to follow them, of planting listening devices in their homes and in their cars, of hacking their phones and intercepting voicemail, of deceiving and impersonating in order to obtain medical records and bank records illegally.

Now, the publisher, ANL, has outright denied these accusations, calling them lurid. But for Prince Harry, this is a matter of principle. He himself will be taking to the stand on Thursday to testify.

BOLDUAN: Salma, thank you so much for being there and for all this reporting. A lot to come from this.

Coming up for us still, the wildly popular online game Roblox making some changes. The new features they're announcing that they say will help keep kids safer.

And Bruce Springsteen sending a message to the Trump administration during a surprise concert.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:51:22]

BOLDUAN: This morning, a dose of "The Good Stuff" for you. Here's a look inside an Iowa correctional facility where something pretty special is happening. In Rockwell City, Iowa, inmates are teaming up with local shelters to train rescue dogs, giving the dogs a second chance and giving the handlers some life lessons.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When I was in the world as a civilian, I think that I took a lot for granted. And even though I felt like I was doing everything right, there was a lot of things that I realize that the dog program has showed me that there's a lot of things that I need to focus on as responsibility, mainly, and -- in taking care of a life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Wow. Four to six weeks, the dogs finished their training and move on to, the best part, being adopted through local shelters into their forever homes.

Some "Good Stuff" for you today.

John.

BERMAN: All right, this morning, new data shows a growing number of young people are turning to the stock market as a form of income. Is this a good thing?

With us now, Madison Mills, senior markets reporter for "Axios," who has a great piece up on "Axios" about just this thing.

So, explain to me what this means, young people are investing in the market for income. Why?

MADISON MILLS, SENIOR MARKETS REPORTER, "AXIOS": Well, they basically came out of the pandemic and had access, some of them, to some stimulus checks. So, that was an opportunity to start getting invested. And a couple of things happened at once. They had a lot of examples in their lives of the American dream not really working out, right? A lot of them expected graduation, school dances. The pandemic upended that.

And then, at the same time, you have this affordability crisis where a traditional American dream might be owning a home someday. That's increasingly out of reach. So, if you're not going to use any excess money to save for a home, you might as well invest in the stock market.

And that's definitely something that influencers are talking about constantly on social media. We've seen a huge rise in young people in particular getting invested for the first time just because of social media influencers. It was a 55 percent increase and four x that of the older boomer generation. So, a huge influence there when it comes to social media.

And then young people are also getting involved in the market when we've been in a bull market. They've continued to get positive feedback for that behavior. So, there's no reason for them to really question putting a lot of their savings into the stock market because it's been working out for them.

BERMAN: Yes, look, if they've been doing this for, you know, five or six years, they've never seen any real, huge, long-term losses. So, why should this concern maybe all of us?

MILLS: Well, part of it is that the kind of fact checker that they're going to now to make sure they're doing the right thing on their investing is A.I. And A.I. can, of course, be incredibly helpful in a lot of ways. But when it comes to investing, part of, you know, these large language models, they're trained to be positive. So, if you come to it and say, hey, I'm excited about NVidia, part of the job of A.I. is to mirror your energy.

You don't want that as an investor. You want someone who's going to push back on you and make sure that you're thinking about things from all different angles, right? So, that's one potential downside.

And another is exactly what you said, John. These younger folks haven't dealt with a bear market before. So, one of the questions is whether or not they have the stomach to deal with that. If you're working with a human financial advisor, they make sure that you have a risk profile that makes sure that you don't sell when the market is down because then you just lock in your losses and you're not there to benefit from the gains. We obviously saw that play out a lot during the small market downturn of 2025.

[08:55:03]

So, it's just about making sure that, OK, if you're going to get invested in the market, making sure you're educating yourself as well as you possibly can and that you don't get spooked if the market does turn down, because that's a very normal part of investing.

BERMAN: And maybe, maybe look for some other sources besides A.I. and Instagram for all your investment advice.

Madison Mills, it's a great piece. Thank you so much for joining us this morning.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Officials in Spain say at least 39 people are dead, dozens more injured after a high speed train derailed and then crashed into another train traveling in the opposite direction. This is, according to Spanish authorities, the worst rail disaster in more than a decade. Spain's transport minister says that experts are just baffled at how this happened in the first place. It was on a straightaway part of the track. They're calling it the way -- one official called it extremely strange. Emergency responders have worked to free many of the passengers who have been trapped in the twisted wreckage for hours. A surprise performance from music legend Bruce Springsteen and a fiery

message that he's sending to the federal government and against ICE. At a concert for a charity in his native New Jersey Saturday, Springsteen slammed the president and ICE operations in Minneapolis, echoing the words of that city's mayor, Jacob Frey.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, MUSICIAN: If you believe you don't deserve to be murdered for exercising your American right to protest, then send a message to this president, and as the mayor of that city has said, ICE should get the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) out of Minneapolis.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Springsteen dedicated his 1978 song "The Promised Land" to Renee Good, the woman, of course, shot and killed by an ICE agent earlier just last week -- a couple weeks ago.

State troopers came to the rescue of a woman and her dog after they fell into a frozen canal in upstate New York. And it was on video. The two were on a walk when the dog fell through the ice. The woman tried to rescue him and then also fell into the frigid water. Troopers responded and pulled them both from the frigid water. Neither of them was seriously hurt, thank goodness, but no thank you. Burr.

John.

BERMAN: No, not at all.

All right, new this morning, new safeguards for one of the most popular video games out there. I'm talking about Roblox. Nearly 40 million children under the age of 13 log in every day. Now the company behind it is rolling out stricter rules for its chat features. The move comes as Roblox faces a wave of lawsuits, claiming it has not done enough to protect children from predators.

CNN's Hadas Gold has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HADAS GOLD, CNN MEDIA CORRESPONDENT (voice over): If you have a child at home, there's a good chance they've played Roblox. The kids build and play user-generated games while chatting with others, paying for special avatars, abilities and items along the way. But the open-ended nature of Roblox, as well as its chat functionalities, has led to major questions and lawsuits over child safety.

BECCA DALLAS, SUING ROBLOX AFTER SON'S DEATH: We did everything we thought we did. We did our best. We put the parental controls. We talked to my son about the dangers. Don't click any links. He thought he was corresponding with a minor. Little did we know it was a 30 something year old man.

GOLD (voice over): We registered for Roblox as though we were a ten year old. Almost immediately we came across words such as active shooter games. In this spray paint world marketed to kids five and older, we saw inappropriate language within seconds, and messages about dying, along with an image of a stick figure in what appeared to be a noose. Roblox says that while it uses technology to block inappropriate content, those tools work best when paired with parental controls. Anger over safety issues has led to some of its own users, like 15-year-old Mason Hebden, to call for action.

MASON HEBDEN, LAUNCHED A PETITION TO REMOVE ROBLOX'S CEO: Game I've seen inappropriate avatars with body parts that really shouldn't be in the game.

GOLD (voice over): After hearing about so many kids' inappropriate experience on the game, he launched a petition calling for accountability from Roblox's CEO and co-founder Dave Bouzouki. The petition has more than 300,000 signatures.

M. HEBDEN: Since he hasn't done anything at all in the past, well, like, multiple years, I feel like there's a -- there needs to be a change with the CEO spot.

GOLD (voice over): Roblox says it welcomes the feedback from the community.

ELIZA JACOBS, ROBLOX SENIOR DIRECTOR PRODUCT POLICY: We have been building safety systems for a long time, and we will continue to build and innovate and improve.

GOLD (voice over): In addition to its existing parental controls and safety measures, Roblox is rolling out age-gating software that scans a users' face, estimates their age, and will only allow the player to chat with those in their age range.

JACOBS: We will have systems running in the background to detect if there's any kind of anomalous behavior on the account. So, if we have any reason to believe that the person that used the facial age estimation system and verified their account is no longer operating that account, will introduce additional checks.

GOLD (voice over): The company is also facing dozens of lawsuits, including by at least four states.

JAMES UTHMEIER, FLORIDA ATTORNEY GENERAL: Today, I'm announcing that my office is filing a lawsuit against Roblox for what we believe are serious failures to protect our kids.

[09:00:06]