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Vance in Minneapolis Amid Tension Between Federal Agents & Protesters; Vance in MN Amid Debate Over Entering Homes Without Judge's Warrant; Source: 5-Year-Old Boy Detained Arriving Home from Preschool; Jack Smith Responds to President Trump's Attacks; Ex-Trump Prosecutor Testifies on Election, Classified Docs Probes 3-3:30p ET

Aired January 22, 2026 - 15:00   ET

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

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The staff spoke to the Governor and has been in constant contact with his staff over the past week. We've been at -- at -- at -- in my office, in constant contact with people here on the ground in Minneapolis. There were certainly people at our roundtable with opposing views. And look, I don't even know, you know, what -- what -- whether it's public, but -- but yes, we -- we met with people with opposing views here at the roundtable. I wanted to get a perspective from everybody, but also, of course, offer my opinion -- with a little bit more cooperation, we can lower the chaos. We're going to keep on doing that.

If Gov. Walz wants to call me, we'll absolutely continue talking. I will say that my sense of this situation, having talked to these guys for a long time, is this is primarily a law enforcement issue. This is the attorney general. This is the local mayor. This is all of the organs of local and state law enforcement. That's who we focus on, but we've certainly been in communication with the Governor and his office as -- as well.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. Vice President.

VANCE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, local law enforcement obviously hasn't been really helping out. But the agency's been assaulting repeatedly. What's the plan if nothing changes there and here locally, and this operation has attracted thousands of agents, are there any plans to go (INAUDIBLE) other cities from here?

VANCE: Well, right now, we're focused on Minneapolis, because that's where we have the highest concentration of people who have violated our immigration laws, and that's -- also, frankly, where we see the most assault of our law enforcement officers. Our plan is very simple. If you assault a federal law enforcement officer, we're going to do everything that we can to put you in prison. It's very simple.

And most of these protesters, as -- as much as I may disagree with their politics, most of them have been peaceful, but a lot of them have not been peaceful. And if you go and storm a church, if you go and assault a federal law enforcement officer, we are going to try very hard. We're going to use every resource of the federal government to put you in prison.

Respect people's rights. Respect people's rights to worship. Respect people's rights to do their job without being assaulted. If you follow that basic principle, the Trump administration is going to do everything that we can to protect your rights. But if you go after somebody, if you assault somebody, if you make a nine-year-old girl cry because you walked into a church and harassed her, we're going to go after you with every single tool that we have.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. Vice President.

VANCE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) your administration has said repeatedly that this is about safety, about making Americans feel safer. So, what do you say to people here in Minnesota who say it's the overwhelming presence of ICE officers and federal officers and their tactics that are making them feel less safe?

VANCE: Well, one thing I would say is, first of all, we saw in 2025 the biggest one-year drop in murders in the history of the United States of America, significant reductions in violent crime. The reason why we have less violent crime is really two reasons.

Number one, because we're enforcing the immigration laws and getting very violent criminals out of our country. And number two, because we're enforcing our criminal laws and putting guys who assault and murder behind bars.

This is part of a broad effort to make us safe. And the chaos that people are seeing, and I understand there is frustration of the chaos, I'd say that we're doing everything that we can to lower the temperature, and we would like federal and -- and local -- excuse me, state and local officials to meet us halfway. So much so ...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... are you saying -- are you saying that they're not perceiving it correctly? Are you saying that they're not seeing the -- the tactics or the presence of the officers that are ...

VANCE: Look, I -- I'm sure that people are seeing a lot of things that would make any member of our national community feel very upset. But I also think that if you understand this in context, this is the inevitable consequence of a state and local government that have decided that they're not going to cooperate with immigration enforcement at all. In fact, they're going to aggressively not cooperate.

So, here -- I mean, here's a -- here's a basic illustration of this. If you are an ICE officer and you have to arrest a person who's committed assault and is also an illegal alien, but the state and local officials won't help you identify that situation, many of the things that -- that people in Minneapolis are seeing that give them pause, that frustrate them, that worry them, that make them feel like things are too chaotic, many of these things are coming from the fact that there's no cooperation with state and local law enforcement. And I guess what I would -- I would tell people, again, many of whom

are justifiably concerned and worried about what they're seeing in their communities is, why are we not seeing it anywhere else? We're seeing this level of chaos only in Minneapolis. L.A. and Chicago, we had some problems there.

Pretty much every jurisdiction where these guys are operating, you don't see the same level of chaos. You don't see the same level of violence. You don't see the problems that we're seeing in Minneapolis. Maybe the problem is unique to Minneapolis, and we believe that it is. And it's a lack of cooperation between state and local law enforcement and federal law enforcement. Sir?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Omar Jimenez of CNN. ICE has been operating here for years with -- with less pushback than -- than we're seeing right now. And even the St. Paul police chief recently said, is there not a way to find common ground without scaring the hell out of people in the community, those are his words. And I just wonder, with this Operation Metro Surge, is any part of it meant to send -- send a formal political message to the leaders here in Minneapolis and the state of Minnesota?

And I know you talked about, you've been in touch with the Governor's offices, the mayor's offices. But -- but why have you not been able to speak to them directly? Have they not been willing to do so?

[15:05:02]

VANCE: Well, look, I have spoken to some of the people in Minnesota directly. I spoke to some of them today. I've spoken to others in the past. And again, our staff has been in very direct contact with pretty much every official with any influence or any power in Minneapolis. But no, we're not trying to send a political message. We're trying to enforce the law.

And unfortunately, what has happened is that as we've enforced the law, there's been this weird reaction -- again, unique to this city. This is not a common thing across the United States of America. There's been a very unique, very Minneapolis-specific reaction to our enforcement of federal immigration laws. What I'm trying to do here today is understand why that is. What is it about Minneapolis that has become so chaotic? What are the specific types of cooperation that we need? Look, I don't need Tim Walz or Jacob Frey or anybody else to come out and say that they agree with J.D. Vance or Donald Trump on immigration. I just don't need that.

What I do need them to do is empower their local officials to help our local or help our federal officials out in a way where this can be a little bit less chaotic and it can be a little bit more targeted. Like, if we're trying to find a sex offender, tell us where the guy lives. Simple things like that, simple changes in how they're approaching immigration enforcement would make this work a lot better. It would make Minneapolis' streets a lot safer and it would make this whole thing a lot less traumatic for this community. I'll take one more question.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. Vice President.

VANCE: Go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You've said that it's time to turn down the temperature. Does that include changes to both ICE and CDP tactics that we've seen employed on the streets, including less than lethal tactics, pepper spray, pepper balls? Beyond that, what is the federal government's role in turning down the temperature? And the Minnesota Department of Corrections says that its own officers have been cooperating with ICE all along, handing over criminals once they've served their sentences to ICE officials. Can you concede that there is some cooperation with the state?

VANCE: Yes, look, if I was going to list the five agencies locally and statewide that I'm most worried about, I wouldn't put the Department of Corrections on that list. I think that while there are certain things we'd like to see more from them, they've hardly been the worst offenders. You agree with that, guys? That's a fair -- that's a fair assessment.

But I think when you talk about tactics and you talked about the response to things, look, we don't want to employ tactics that -- we don't want to employ the kind of tactics that are only necessary when violence is committed against officers. That is these guys' directive, and that's what we're going to try to do.

And -- and -- and again, the President said this a couple of days ago, whenever you have a law enforcement operation, even if 99.99 percent of the guys do everything perfectly, you're going to have people that make mistakes. That is the nature of law enforcement.

What I do think that we can do is working with state and local officials, we can make the worst moments of chaos much less common, and all they've got to do is meet us halfway. These guys want to communicate with them. They want to talk to the local business leaders. They -- many of these guys, many of the people standing behind me are members of the Minneapolis community. Many officials that I met today who work in federal immigration enforcement, this is their home. They love this place. These are their neighbors. They want this to work a lot more smoothly.

I think that we can get there. We've just got to work at it a little bit, and we need some cooperation from state and local officials. The last thing that I'll say is -- is I just hope they give it. This is a beautiful city. I've only been here a few times. I love it. Even in this weather, I love Minneapolis. We could do a lot better. We could do a lot more with more cooperation.

The Trump administration, the directive that I got from the President of the United States is meet these guys halfway, work with them so that we can make these immigration enforcement operations successful without endangering our ICE officers, and so that we can turn down the chaos a little bit, at least. I think a lot, actually.

But for us to do that, we need some help from the state and local officials. We will keep on working with them. And so long as they're willing to work with us, they will always find a partner in public safety and law enforcement in the Trump administration. Thank you all.

(CROSSTALK)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: As the Trump administration faces a myriad of tough headlines coming out of Minneapolis amid first the AP to report about ICE officers going into homes without warrants, of course, the recent death of Renee Good at the hands of an ICE officer, and just generally the way we've been able to observe some ICE officers conducting themselves, even as immigration officials insist that they are being professional. We see the Vice President there speaking, defending ICE, and putting a lot of the onus on local law enforcement for not joining them. Essentially, providing more backup.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR AND NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. And he had said the reason he was going to Minneapolis today is that he wanted to better understand the chaos. He wants to turn the temperature down, wants to figure out what is happening there. But to your point, Brianna, what we heard over and over again from the Vice President in these remarks is that it is, in his view, local law enforcement and state and local officials that are standing in the way.

[15:10:02]

And he also noted that the reason that there are so many ICE agents in Minneapolis at that point -- at this point is really to protect the ICE agents, because when they need help, he's saying, they're asking for help and they're not getting it. He claims that that is because local officers have been told not to come to the aid of ICE agents.

I know that's something that CNN has reached out to the Minneapolis Police Department on. We're waiting for them to get back to us on that. But this is a lot of what we're hearing. I mean, as we parse through what we're hearing and -- and what sort of is standard operating procedure and what isn't, we have a full team with us, Josh Campbell as well as the former ICE head of policy, Scott Shuchart, Priscilla Alvarez is with us as well.

Josh, I just want to start with you in terms of what we heard from him about this -- this back and forth and -- and the narrative over local versus federal, what do we know, Josh, about where things stand in terms of that cooperation?

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, this is the United States, right? Different jurisdictions have different policies based on what the people of these locations actually want politically. They're the ones who elect the officials who enact these policies.

And it is true that in places like Minneapolis, you have the police department, which is not permitted to assist in immigration operations there in the city. There has been a -- somewhat of a narrative from DHS saying that even if -- their ICE agents are under attack, the Minneapolis police are not responding. That's actually false. We've seen incidents in the past, including the recent shooting of a man after he allegedly assaulted ICE agents. You saw a local police respond to try to assist with that investigation. The Minneapolis Police Department's own policy says that if there's an

agent who is under threat for public safety reasons, they will certainly respond. But they don't do pure immigration. The other thing I just want to note in -- you know, the Vice President talked there a lot about tactics. We have seen some recent use of force incidents that are quite questionable where, you know, you can actually see agents appearing to almost kind of inflict punishment along with trying to arrest people. Some of these crowds have indeed, you know, turned violent at times.

We saw one video of a man recently who was being arrested. And then, you saw ICE agents actually pepper spraying him. I'm not sure if we have that -- that video. But there's this large crowd that is in and around these ICE agents as they were trying to conduct some type of operation. That's the video you can see here.

This got very chaotic very quickly. There's a man in a black jacket kind of off to the left of your screen who you'll see in a moment is actually placed on -- in custody. I actually think, and people may see this different, this particular video right here I think is probably one of the strongest examples almost in favor of these agents. Because in this video, you could actually see members of the crowd coming in towards these agents, at times body checking the agents, and then the agents deploying less lethal force to try to push, you know, those people back.

At one point also, they deployed tear gas, and you could see a protester kicking that back towards the agents.

I think people engaged in that activity, you know, faced legal fire from -- you know, the courts and from prosecutors if you're actually going out there and trying to assault agents. But that said, we have seen so many other instances where it does appear that agents are going overboard. And then, just a final point, I'll make this based on what we just heard from the Vice President. He notes that, look, in some situations you will have agents making mistakes because law enforcement officers are human beings.

That is a fact, but the one thing that we've noticed, and I've heard this from law enforcement sources as well concerned, because we see the administration coming out so quickly to essentially exonerate every single officer very quickly after every questionable use of force incident, it does raise questions about whether there is real accountability when someone does something wrong.

KEILAR: Yes. It does.

Let's talk to Scott Shuchart, the former ICE head of policy, about a couple of things. And we see, you know, the Vice President trying to kind of go in and explain away some things, right? He'll basically say, you read a headline, and what it's actually missing is context. He talked about there's not really racial profiling. He was asked about the fact that there are these off-duty police officers in one suburb of the Twin Cities where you actually have the police chief. He said it was just one police officer. He said, no, it's actually the police chief who's saying his officers who have been confronted by ICE asked for papers, they're all of color. And he was also talking about these warrants. And it was very confusing what he was saying. So maybe you can talk to us about that, because we've seen stories where you've had American citizens actually wrapped up in that.

SCOTT SHUCHART, FORMER ICE HEAD OF POLICY: Yes, we don't have grades at Yale Law School, but the Vice President said a lot of things that would have gotten him marked down, really did not make a lot of sense. The American tradition is that it takes an Article III judge, a federal judge or a magistrate who works with federal judges, to issue a warrant that allows a police officer to enter your home without consent.

The Department of Homeland Security has apparently adopted this aggressive view that, quote-unquote, "administrative warrants," which are signed out by ICE officers, not even by immigration judges, also allow entry into people's homes if the person was ordered removed by an immigration judge.

[15:15:16]

The idea of the Fourth Amendment is that you have a completely independent, neutral, detached magistrate deciding if there is legitimate, probable cause to enter somebody's home. What we've seen in this administration is that the immigration judges are not independent. They're just Department of Justice lawyers. Hundreds of them have been fired for not ruling the way the administration wants them to rule.

So, how does having those judges issue the removal order create any kind of independence? And even if it did, they're not the ones issuing the warrants. So, the Vice President seemed to just not understand that system.

HILL: And that's in reaction, too, as you pointed out, this was entering homes without force. This has gotten a lot of attention in the last 24 hours or so, this AP report that there had been this new directive essentially for ICE that -- that contradicts the training in the manual that says you can enter a home without permission or using force just using this administrative warrant.

But I was -- just one other thing, if you could clarify for me, because I was also confused by what the Vice President was saying. He was saying, if my notes are correct, that these administrative warrants are used to enforce administrative law. And then what I thought was telling is he said, it's possible the courts could say no, but it's our understanding is you can force the -- enforce the immigration laws of the country under an administrative order if you have an administrative order.

It was a very circular. Again, I may have been following properly, but ...

SHUCHART: So, again, I think what they're saying, and -- and it's difficult because even the leaked memo that the AP has ...

HILL: Yes. SHUCHART: ... is not by a lawyer. It doesn't contain the legal advice. It just has one sentence saying, well, we've gotten new legal advice.

Professor Orin Kerr has done the best piece I've seen. I saw it off Bluesky explaining what he thinks is going on here. I think the idea is the administrative warrant is called the I-205, that is a piece of paper that is signed by an ICE officer. They are saying that if the -- if the immigrant was ordered removed by an immigration judge or by a federal judge, then that order can be the basis for an administrative warrant.

Now, it is true that order can be the basis for the administrative warrant. What's different is they're now taking the legal position that that administrative warrant, that single piece of paper signed by an ICE officer, can then be treated like a judicial warrant that would allow forced entry into a home. That's the piece that's new.

KEILAR: Okay. Talk to us, Priscilla, I know you've done a little reporting on this, about the five-year-old, which that was the first question that the Vice President was asked, was about this five-year- old and -- and we saw a picture of it as well. But he was asked about -- do you just tell us what you know.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So, the situation with this five-year-old that he himself said when he originally saw the photo was shocked and affected by because he himself has children is this photo of this child who after school was in his driveway. He is dressed warmly. He's with an officer.

The way that the agents have described this, you see the video there, he's there -- he's there with the officer -- is that when they were targeting his father, the father left the vehicle and went inside and so the agents stayed with the child. So, it's sort of this convoluted what happened here because the superintendent of the school district, and this isn't the first student that they've seen be taken by ICE, is describing this as the agents using the child as bait. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has refuted that saying they don't use children as bait.

All the same, however, both the child, who's five, and the father are now at an ICE facility in Texas for family. So, they were detained at the end of the day and this is something I've been covering at length, is these children who have been living in the interior of the United States, they have lives in schools, as was the case here, and then they are suddenly put into these detention settings and it just completely changes everything for them.

And the reason that's so striking is because generally with family detention, when it is used, when families are crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, so they don't have roots here necessarily, they're going there and then they're going through their proceedings and they may be released and the Biden administration had paused family detention, of course, but it's now back.

I do, however, want to take a step back because we should note the tone of the Vice President during this. It was a strikingly different tone than two weeks ago or so at the White House podium. Here, there was an attempt to try to get to the middle ground here and I didn't count how many times he said chaos, but it was a lot and we have seen that there is polling to show that there are fractures within the American public about how immigration enforcement is happening and that is exactly what he appeared to be speaking to there.

Yes, he plays the onus on local law enforcement, but there is an element here of the administration that he himself is acknowledging that is going astray and is potentially hurting their overall campaign here that Americans originally or a good share of them originally did want to see executed.

[15:20:13]

HILL: And it's -- it's an interesting point you bring up too because what we also heard from him and Sara Sidner is on the ground force in Minneapolis and Sara, I want to bring you in on this. What we heard from him, sort of to Priscilla's point, is he wanted to reset the scene as this is a uniquely sort of Minneapolis problem, if you will, that he doesn't see it happening necessarily this clash between local and federal agents in the same way in other cities, even talking about Los Angeles at one point.

Sara, what is the reaction there in Minneapolis?

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR & SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: If what J.D. Vance meant to do was calm things down, the word that I'm getting from the people who are here, the residents here who are watching this very closely is he didn't do a good job. They're saying the words that he used, the constant blaming of local authorities for the problems that they see ICE causing, it didn't work, that it didn't do a damn thing to -- to calm things down.

We are hearing from people like a physician who says that she can't get patients in to the hospital because they are terrified of coming in, even though they have legal status. They're afraid that ice is going to detain them. We are hearing from those who have been protesting who said that while they are sitting there blaming local authorities, it is ISIS actions themselves that are causing the chaos, not the other way around.

And they point out that there are some three -- two to three thousand members of ice here that is to double or triple the amount of local officers that are here in the city. So, the chaos they blame on ICE alone and ice itself, while you have the Vice President saying, look, this is a problem because local authorities are not working alongside ICE. And he gave an example -- for example, we're looking for somebody who is a potential, you know, sex trafficker or a pedophile. If they would just tell us where he is, then we would be targeting our enforcement there. But that also opens the door when you say that, too. Well, if you're not just going after very targeted scenarios, then what is it that you are doing? Because if you are not getting cooperation from local authorities to be very targeted in your movements, then are you just doing sweeping movements?

And that is what a lot of people who are here, who are standing up against ICE, say they are doing. There are people talking about being retaliated against, businesses who have come out in support of protests, who have spoken out against ice, who say they are being retaliated against by ice.

So, the chaos from what some folks here in this community see is not being brought because of local authorities, but instead being brought because of ICE. What he said did not help to calm that down.

Well, I will say this. What will likely calm much of this down, ICE's actions and protest actions, is what you're seeing around me, the weather. We are talking about negative temperatures down to a windchill of potentially negative 50, that is going to keep people home. And there is a protest planned, and that protest isn't planned to come out in this and show their disagreement with ICE, but to stay in, not go to work, not go to school, not go to church, not go to the grocery store, not go shopping, that is a protest that is also planned for tomorrow as this weather turns potentially completely frigid, but potentially deadly. It is that cold out here.

HILL: Wow. Sara, thank you. Negative 50. I'm stuck on that for a minute. Sorry.

All right. Obviously, a lot still to cover and -- and much more to come here the rest of this hour. Just moments ago, that hearing with former Special Jack counsel -- former Special Counsel Jack Smith wrapping up. We'll take a closer look at what he told lawmakers about his past prosecutions of President Trump.

KEILAR: Then later details on a crippling winter storm that could shut down cities across the country. We'll have that and much more coming up on CNN News Central.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:28:32]

HILL: Just moments ago, former Special Counsel Jack Smith was wrapping up his testimony on Capitol Hill after taking questions for the first time in public about his prosecutions of President Trump. Now, Smith defended his actions as Republican lawmakers grilled him and Democratic lawmakers voiced their support.

KEILAR: In one exchange, Smith was asked to respond to the personal attacks that he and his team faced from President Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JACK SMITH, FORMER SPECIAL COUNSEL WHO PROSECUTED TRUMP: I will not be intimidated. I think these statements are also made as a warning to others, what will happen if they stand up. And I am, as I said, I'm not going to be intimidated. We did our work pursuant to department policy. We followed the facts and we followed the law and that process resulted in proof beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed serious crimes. I'm not going to pretend that didn't happen because he's threatening me.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And Mr. Smith, do you believe that President Trump's Department of Justice will find some way to indict you?

SMITH: I believe that they -- they will do everything in their power to do that because they've been ordered to by the President.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: And the President posting on Truth Social about something similar today. We're joined now by CNN senior legal analyst, Elie Honig and former federal prosecutor, Brendan Ballou. For two years, he prosecuted rioters who attacked the Capitol on January 6th. Important to note.

Brendan, I wonder what stood out to you about this day, today, Jack Smith under fire, being defended, and I'm curious how you thought it went.

[15:30:07]

BRENDAN BALLOU, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: You know, I thought there were two sort of vices that everybody was trying to avoid, and I think that's what happened.