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"ICE Out" Protest March Underway in Minneapolis; FEMA Halts Disaster Worker Job Cuts Ahead of Arctic Winter Storm; Philadelphia Sues Trump Administration Over Slavery Exhibit Removal; Alex Honnold to Try to Climb Taipei 101 Skyscraper. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired January 23, 2026 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

ERICA HILL, CNN HOST: Well, despite the frigid temperatures in Minneapolis today, demonstrators are taking to the streets to protest the Trump administration's immigration enforcement operations there. Take a look at the scene earlier today in Minneapolis. This is a different scene here.

We know, though, that there was an incident at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport -- here we go -- where a number of protesters were taken into custody. All of this, of course, unfolding as there's been this statewide strike in Minnesota, prompting hundreds of businesses to close. It's actually part of a protest that's being labeled an economic blackout.

It's been organized by faith leaders, by unions, and it's urging people there to stay home, to avoid shopping in this moment as a sign of protest. Minnesota State Senator Zaynab Mohamed joins me now. Senator, it's good to have you with us.

When we look at where things stand, so much focus, of course, on Minneapolis, on your state. Vice President Vance, who came to Minneapolis yesterday, said that he believes the, quote, number one way we can lower the mistakes that are happening, at least with our immigration enforcement, he said, is to have local jurisdictions that are cooperating with us. Do you believe that there is more cooperation that would help in this moment?

And if so, how so? Where?

ZAYNAB MOHAMED, (D) MINNESOTA STATE SENATOR: Thank you for asking that question. It's good to be here with you this afternoon. I think the only way that things can calm in Minnesota is if ICE agents left. What we heard from our communities over the last few weeks, certainly this past week, is that ICE has overwhelmed the state of Minnesota.

There are more ICE agents in the state of Minnesota than there are police officers. They are not coordinating with local law enforcement and letting them know what's happening. And it's created so much chaos to a point where law enforcement can't even carry out their duty and their regular business as usual.

And so what's happening is ICE isn't coming in and asking local law enforcement, hey, we're to enforce immigration laws. Here's what we're after. Can you work with us?

They just come in and create chaos. They're pepper spraying people. They're tear gassing people.

They are driving on the wrong way of the road. They're shooting people. And so local law enforcement is feeling overwhelmed.

And you have seen law enforcement do a press conference this week alone where they said our own undercover -- or our own off duty police officers have been stopped by ICE agents. This was somebody who is a regular police officer who was doing their shift and going home after an off duty shift who was pulled over by ICE agents. So they pulled a gun on them.

HILL: I believe that was the police chief of Brooklyn Park.

MOHAMED: We would absolutely work with them.

HILL: Sure, the police chief of Brooklyn Park, I believe, who was detailing what had happened to some of his off duty officers. All of them, he noted, were people of color. You talk about ICE coming in and overwhelming the local law enforcement.

I do want to ask you about what we've heard from federal officials. So you have Greg Bovino, who, of course, is the Border Patrol commander at large. He claims that in a number of instances, his federal agents have called local law enforcement, the local police, called them because they felt they needed help in the moment and that the local police was not responding to those calls.

CNN has reached out to the Minneapolis Police Department specifically about that. They haven't gotten back to us. Do you believe that, too, could be part of the issue that ICE is feeling in some ways under threat and local law enforcement is not helping them?

What do you make of that?

MOHAMED: Yes, I mean, I don't think that's the case at all. I was on the ground shortly after the shooting that happened in North Minneapolis, where a man was shot that night, where our police department came and they came to protect the evidence that was there and try to work with them as much as possible. And they told them the state is not allowed to co-investigate.

The police department is not here to work with ICE agents. I think what they want to do is for local law enforcement to come in, allow them to create chaos and not do anything about it. The people in the state at the end of the day have to still work with the police department and ask them for help.

And what's happening is community is calling 911 and asking for help because ICE is just going into random people's homes, random people's businesses, stopping people when they're driving. And so, like, what is happening is a level of coordination that we have from the federal government to ICE here that we've never seen before. And then our state government and city government and local law enforcement are all like in the blind trying to figure out what's happening, who's being arrested, how can they work, what can they do?

And there's no communication between the two. And I don't think that's on our local officials at all. They've been asking for questions.

HILL: Yes, we're looking at live pictures here. We're a little tight on time, but these frigid temperatures, we see the protests, they're live pictures. The police chief in Minneapolis has talked about how local authorities have worked to reestablish trust with the community in the wake of George Floyd's murder.

And he also warned that the city is heading to a point that, in his words, could be very explosive. Do you think this is nearing a tipping point? Would you agree with the chief?

[15:35:00]

MOHAMED: Yes, absolutely. I think Chief O'Hara came in right after the murder of George Floyd and has really worked hard, incredibly hard, to gain the trust of the community, as you've seen what we went through with the murder of George Floyd. We have been building a relationship with our local police department.

I think they have done an extraordinary, extraordinary in this moment. And I think the chief has been stepping up and leading on behalf of the community, trying to work with ICE, but they're not working with him. And what you're hearing from him is a frustration from somebody who's built years to get the trust of the community.

And now all of that is being dismantled by random men who are wearing face masks, who are driving on the road the wrong way, who are kidnapping children, who are kidnapping indigenous people, who are not following the rules of this country. That is the problem here.

HILL: Minnesota State Senator Zaynab Mohamed, thank you for your time -- Brianna.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: As two-thirds of the country is bracing for this weekend's huge Arctic winter storm, FEMA has quietly paused the dismissals of hundreds of disaster workers who were set to lose their jobs in the coming days. The agency is preparing for the potential aftermath of this incoming storm that's forecast to pound a large swath of the country with freezing rain, debilitating ice and snow.

We have CNN correspondent Gabe Cohen here with us on this story. And you saw the staff e-mail that went out about this. Tell us about it.

GABE COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And Brianna, you know, we have been reporting for months now that the Trump administration, the Department of Homeland Security, they are already deep into this overhaul of FEMA that we have been expecting to only intensify in the months ahead. One of the key recent details has been these terminations that we've seen in January. Just about every disaster worker whose contract, employment contract is expiring this month, they've all been shown the door.

Nobody is getting renewed. They are all being axed. It's causing a lot of chaos and confusion across the agency because even senior folks have seen their workforce diminish, and they're worried about responding to disasters like the winter storm that we're going to see here in the days ahead.

But then yesterday, just hours after Secretary Kristi Noem goes to FEMA, she gets briefed on the disaster ahead. Suddenly, an e-mail goes out saying, we're now halting those cuts, that they are going to cease offboarding these staffers at least until the storm is over. We don't know how long term that's going to be.

But it is really indicative, it seems, of how this administration is approaching this storm, how seriously they're taking it. I can tell you I obtained an internal document from inside FEMA yesterday that talked a little bit about how they're preparing. It says, "FEMA is on the ground and leaning forward, proactively supporting states in the path of this winter storm to ensure a rapid and well-coordinated response."

And we know they've activated their national response center. They've been stationing generators, hundreds of thousands of meals and bottles of water all across this region that's expected to get hit hard. So they are taking it very seriously.

But one of the big concerns is that we have seen a lot of people get pushed out of this agency. This is a big test for FEMA. How are they going to respond?

We'll have to see in the days ahead.

KEILAR: And it's looking not so good, right? I think the question is, where is it going to be the worst? But it would be a terrible PR situation for FEMA, right, if they're laying off people in the middle of this.

We have no idea, though. I mean, even if they lay people off right after it, that's not great.

COHEN: Correct.

KEILAR: So how long does the pause last?

COHEN: Correct. And we don't exactly know. And we can tell you, I can tell you that the storm certainly was a big factor in that decision. But we don't know if this is just short term, if they're looking for a longer term process.

But you are absolutely right. They don't want to fall on their face right now, especially Kristi Noem and Homeland Security, because this has been a huge project of theirs over the past year.

KEILAR: Yes. All right, Gabe, thank you so much for the great reporting. Really appreciate it.

Ahead, Philadelphia is suing the Trump administration after the National Park Service removed a longstanding exhibit on slavery in the city's Independence National Historical Park. We'll have details ahead.

[15:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: The city of Philadelphia is suing the Trump administration after the National Park Service removed a historic slavery exhibit from the city's Independence Park. This lawsuit names the National Park Service, its acting director and U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. The city is asking a judge to issue a preliminary injunction to return the displays to the president's house site where presidents George Washington and John Adams lived.

This exhibit honored people enslaved by Washington and featured a historical timeline of slavery in the U.S. I'm joined now by professor of African-American studies at Vanderbilt University and authors of "Tears We Cannot Stop, a sermon to white America," Michael Eric Dyson. Michael, I just happened to see this exhibit in less than a year ago. It was great. I wonder what went through your mind when you saw it being removed.

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON, PROFESSOR OF AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY: You know, Brianna, this is an unfortunate example of the attempt to whitewash American history, to deny the uglier parts of the story. The narrative is made stronger when we acknowledge that there have been problems. There have been lacuna gaps in the telling of that story.

But that when we tell the story fully and completely and understand the broad backdrop against which American history is unfolded, we are a better nation, a stronger nation. We did have enslavement. We did have slavery.

Let's tell the truth about it. George Washington, though he ostensibly opposed slavery, also continued to own human beings as slaves. Let's tell that story, too.

That doesn't reduce the complexity, the nuance, the power of American history. It adds to it. So when we attempt to somehow pick and choose and cherry pick about what we will include and what we will not include, that is a greater destruction of the American narrative and story than anything that is horrendous that can be revealed when we tell the truth about slavery in America.

[15:45:00]

KEILAR: This is truly a fascinating story of America when you dig into it. Pennsylvania had a gradual abolition law while George Washington lived there when the nation's capital had moved to Philadelphia.

And that meant the slaves that he brought with him from Mount Vernon in Virginia could seek freedom if they were in Pennsylvania for six months. He, according to accounts, kind of kept them a little hidden, right, from the public because it wasn't obviously cool in Pennsylvania to have slaves. And he quickly got wise to this law. He rotated them out of the state before they'd been there six months if he thought they might register to pursue freedom. I was digging around today, just so interesting. Washington actually wrote to his secretary, if upon taking good advice it is found expedient to send them back to Virginia, I wish to have it accomplished under the pretext that may deceive both them and the public.

That's a quote. Those are his words. Why is it so important that people understand these contradictions, especially through this particular individual, the first president, General George Washington?

DYSON: Right. To understand that this is deeply rooted, the pedigree of our mendacity, the lying, the deception, the prevarication, trying to figure out how do we move them out of state for six months, you know, after six months so they won't qualify for the ability to sue us for freedom. Even the first president, who, again, a great man, a man of extraordinary ability, but also a man who was vexed by this vicious ownership of another human being.

And that's part of the American story. And if that first president can do it, and we saw many subsequent presidents do it, that tells us about the draw of owning these human beings and what we had to do to get rid of it. And it also says to us, those who are the legatees of those enslaved people like myself, like others that I know, that means that we have had a rough road to redemption in America, to grasping hold of democracy and making sure that it's real.

And we've often had the state itself working against us in order to achieve the very freedom that was guaranteed to us by that constitutional convention that met there in Philadelphia, because then the head of government, of course, was in Philadelphia before, of course, being relocated to Washington, D.C. So the seat of our government was involved in the shenanigans to try to hide and to try to distort.

And so I think today is the 80th birthday, for instance, of Susan Taylor, who was the former editor in chief of Essence magazine and now is an extraordinary philanthropist and social activist. I think about that woman, her story, how that story has been told in America because her people were enslaved and my people were enslaved. And this is adding to a greater appreciation for the extraordinary valor it took for human beings who were African-American and others who were black to resist white supremacy, social injustice and make this nation what it is today.

Let's not lie about the history. Let's not paper over it. Let's tell the truth.

And when we do that, we're a stronger nation.

KEILAR: President Trump issued this executive order in March that directs the interior secretary to remove content within the department's jurisdiction that, quote, inappropriately disparages Americans past or living. Where do you see this going next?

DYSON: Yes, this is extraordinary. The discomfort of white people cannot be the litmus test to determine the validity of an artifact, a history, a museum. The discomfort of many people who recognize, yes, my people were involved in some nefarious activities, but we overcame together.

We had a bloody war. We contested each other. But we've tried to work this out.

It continues to be fought. This war, as you can understand, is still being fought. The South may have lost the war, but they've engaged in trying to win the war of interpretation.

The president is an extension of a white supremacist logic and a white nationalist rhetoric that refuses to acknowledge that it was wrong, that it was complicitous in horrible events that undermine the integrity of this nation. But when we tell the truth, we are able to gather together all races, all ethnicities, all genders, all sexualities, and recognize that the motto of this nation is still true, that creed, e pluribus unum, out of many, one. That's why diversity is important.

That's why bringing together various peoples of various nations and various religions and various colors together to make this nation the best that it can be.

KEILAR: Michael, what do you say to people who they will take issue with how you describe the president yet? But they might also, you talk about discomfort with some of these topics.

[15:50:00]

What do you say to them about why this is something that people should know, the truth about these individuals?

DYSON: Right, I teach at Vanderbilt University. Most of my students are not black. They are white or non-black students.

They are international. They come together to learn. It is important for us as a nation to grapple with this significant period in our history where we did horrible things to justify the enslavement and subordination of one group of people to another.

And the reason it's important to face that, we're doing the same thing now. I'm not saying there's an exact parallel, but when we see what's going on with ICE that your station has covered, and we remember the slave catchers that went out trying to seek African-American flesh. I'm not saying there's a one-to-one correlation, but the haunting similarity of subordinating people to issues in the state where the state is wrong, where the state is reaching beyond its own law.

We have people and instances of people who are disobeying the very laws on the book. The Supreme Court can't rein this man in. The state legislators won't rein him in.

The U.S. Congress won't rein him in. The only thing that reins him in, according to him, is his conscience. That is too thin a membrane upon which to rest the future of our democracy. So white brothers and sisters and others who are uncomfortable must be made uncomfortable to the point they began to say, you know what? My discomfort cannot legitimate or validate my trying to live in what Gore Vidal called the United States of amnesia. Let's take off the blinders.

Let's stop disremembering what we don't like. Barbara Streisand sang a song not many years ago. What's too painful to remember, we simply choose to forget.

That's what we're doing now, trying to forget. But when we remember, the nation is made more vigorous and more committed to the very principles that animated us from the very beginning.

KEILAR: Michael Eric Dyson, a lot of conversation being spurred by this development in Philadelphia. Thank you so much for some of it. We'll be right back.

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KEILAR: American climber Alex Honnold is about to attempt one of the most daring feats in television history, climbing a 101-story skyscraper in front of an audience of potentially millions of people.

HILL: Of course, he's no stranger to high-profile efforts like this. You may have seen "Free Solo." That's the Oscar-winning documentary of Honnold's climb of Yosemite's El Capitan.

Of course, without ropes, without protective equipment.

[15:55:00]

KEILAR: And he's now going to attempt the same on Taipei 101. It's a 101-story building in Taiwan's capital. It's the 11th tallest in the world.

It's a climb that is going to be broadcast live on Netflix tonight. Let's talk about it with Tommy Caldwell. He's a close friend and climbing partner of Honnold's.

He's a legendary climber in his own right. All right, Tommy, talk to us about how dangerous this is, how technical it is. How would you compare it to his famous Free Solo of El Capitan?

TOMMY CALDWELL, FRIEND AND MENTOR TO ALEX HONNOLD: Oh, my God. I mean, I don't know if this is what you want to hear, but I actually feel like this isn't all that dangerous. I don't think he'd be doing it if it was dangerous.

Everybody else is going to look very scary and very dangerous. It's a super tall building. But I think the actual climbing is well, well within Alex's physical abilities.

HILL: OK, can confirm it looks super scary to me. So you're right for the non-professional climbers over here. But it's got to be different, too, when you're talking about a building versus a rock formation. I mean, how different are those surfaces?

CALDWELL: I mean, I haven't climbed skyscrapers personally. So a lot of this is just imagination. But, you know, it's I know that it's a building made of glass and metal, and the climbing moves are going to be really consistent.

Like, I think he just does the same exact move over and over again. So if he knows how to do that move really well, once he's going to be able to just repeat it over and over again. Whereas on an actual rock surface, it's a little bit more like, you know, you could almost equate it to like playing a single note of music versus playing an entire song. And this is going to just be like repeating the same note over and over again.

Now, there's a lot of pressure involved. There's going to be a lot of eyes on it. And the fact that he's so high up in an exposed spot is going to be thrilling for both him and the audience.

You know, as just sort of like, you know, if you're looking at this through child's eyes, like we just we're climbers. We love playing on jungle gyms. We love climbing on things.

And this building is a magnificent feature. So the fact that he gets to climb it is just something I feel like he can't say no to. And he's pretty excited about them.

KEILAR: It is the ultimate jungle gym. All right, so I know you're saying that this is actually easier than the feats he has attempted, but I'm assuming he's trained for this, right?

I mean, there's still a lot that goes into this. How do you train for something like this?

CALDWELL: He's definitely been training. I mean, we kind of hold each other accountable for training. We love training.

We love trying to get better. We love improving ourselves. And so he's had some rock climbing projects that use the same type of movements and muscles that he believes he'll need on this climb.

And he is thriving in those ways. Like, I think right now he is probably climbing better than he ever has. He's got a home training gym, you know, like a like a whole facility at his house.

He's been doing a lot of weightlifting. I think he's really over preparing for this one, which is great because we don't want anything to go wrong.

HILL: No, definitely not. You mentioned, you know, there's I mean, I would think there is certainly an added amount of pressure when you know this is a broadcast that millions of people are tuning into. I mean, how do you -- how do you tune that out?

CALDWELL: I mean, this is new territory, right? I don't think a free solo has ever been live broadcast before. Alex is better at tuning that kind of stuff out than probably anybody.

And so I think he really, I don't know. He just has this amazing way of like compartmentalizing and focusing on what's in front of him. And if you know, like if anybody can tune out all the noise that could potentially distract him in a bad way, it's Alex.

KEILAR: What do you think the objective is here? I mean, because we compared to when we saw Alex in Free Solo, he's now a dad, right? There is danger here, even though it may not be the most dangerous thing he did.

You know, there is inherently danger in this. What's the objective? What does this achieve?

CALDWELL: I mean, I think it's twofold. It's just a life experience that he can't say no to. You know, he kind of conceived this idea himself years ago, but never thought it was going to happen.

And then a production company managed to get together and get him permission. And he's just like, this is just something that nobody gets to do. I have this very unique opportunity that's going to create a cool life experience.

It's not all that dangerous. He doesn't feel like. And so he's like, I might as well.

I also think there's this other objective of I think Alex understands that he has this like unique ability, at least in the climbing world, to create abundance around him that he then shares. Like, he's an incredibly generous person. I almost see it as, you know, like a rising tide rises all ships, right?

[16:00:00]

Like he, through this kind of thing, can create a lot of great things around him, which then he gives away to his foundation, to his friends and family. Like he doesn't seem to need a whole lot himself. So this is in some ways a way to give, even though from afar, it seems like a very selfish endeavor.

HILL: Tommy, thanks so much for joining us.

And THE ARENA with Kasie Hunt starts right now.

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