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Man Charged With Assault After Spraying Substance at Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN); At Least 300,000 Still Without Power Amid Brutal Cold; Fed Reserve to Make First Rate Decision Since Powell Rebuke of Trump. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired January 28, 2026 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking overnight, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar attacked at a town hall in Minneapolis, sprayed with an unknown liquid. This morning, police have identified the suspect and new, shocking comments from the president. He said, Omar probably sprayed herself.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: The measles, South Carolina now has the unfortunate distinction of becoming the largest outbreak in the United States since the disease was declared eliminated more than 20 years ago. What officials are doing to stop it.

And a new warning about a new A.I. scam, thieves using A.I. to fake pictures of missing pets, and then stealing thousands of dollars from their heartbroken owner.

I'm Kate Bolduan with John Berman in New York. Sara Sidner is in Minneapolis. This is CNN News Central.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: I am Sara Sidner. I am here live in Minneapolis.

Overnight, there was an attack on a congresswoman. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar was doing her monthly town hall, as she does every single month here, and nothing has ever happened except this time something did. A man who was in the audience jumped up and sprayed something out of what looked like a syringe at her. She actually cocked her arm back and looked like she was about to lunge when her security detail jumped on him, wrestled him to the ground, and eventually took him out of the facility.

Now, at the time, her security was asking her to please leave. They wanted to check her, they wanted to make sure that she was okay, they wanted to take her out of the venue, but she refused, saying she would not be intimidated and stood and continued her town hall with a full house waiting to hear her thoughts and comments on what has been happening with ICE in her community, which she continued to speak about.

Eventually, she did leave and I had a chance to talk to her. We were in the room, our photographer, Jerry Simonson, getting every single movement of the suspect in this particular case. And then as she was leaving, I was able to get an exclusive interview with her. And let me let you hear what she said after I asked her how she was doing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Representative Omar, are you okay?

REP. ILHAN OMAR (D-MN): You know, I'm going to go figure if I am, but I feel okay. I feel that it is important for people, whether they are an elected officer or not, to allow these people to intimidate us, to make us not fight for our constituents and for the country we love. And as I said, you know, I've survived war and I'm definitely going to survive intimidation and whatever these people think they can throw at me because I'm built that way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Because I'm built that way. She was -- she felt very powerful at the moment, but she did have to get checked. An ambulance came and she did have to have medical checks.

Now, the question is, who is this person who decided to attack her, attending her town hall, and what was his purpose? And another big question that everyone in the room wanted to know, because the staff was quite shaken by this, as were some of the people in the room. What was in that syringe? What was the substance? And I can tell you from being in the room at the same time and being quite close to where to when this happened, it smelled like vinegar. Suddenly there was sort of a vinegar-like smell that filled the room, and a lot of people concerned about exactly what was in that syringe.

We also know, of course, that Donald Trump is changing his leadership apparatus here because of the result of what ICE has done here and how his leadership here, including the commander in charge, Greg Bovino, has handled it.

[07:05:00]

He has been moved out, and now coming in, Border Czar Tom Homan, who we know is meeting with leaders here, meeting with city leaders here. But it was quite an evening because her staff told us she has these town halls, the congresswoman, every single month, and nothing has ever happened.

But, unfortunately, like many people in Congress, she has faced many threats, death threats. But this is the first time at one of her town halls that someone actually acted towards her, actually was aggressive towards her and tried to assault her. John?

BOLDUAN: Sara, I'll take it. Yes, it's -- fortunately, you and your crew were there to document it all. And as John was talking about, President Trump to ABC News, overnight, flippantly commenting and shocking commentary, saying that possibly, probably she had sprayed herself, very clearly, did not.

Let's turn to this right now. Brace for more weather. That's what the new forecast is saying. Today, a bomb cyclone could be the next winter storm that is coming to the East Coast this weekend. What that means, the potential from a -- potential of another round of heavy snow with big winds mixed in as well. The East Coast though is very much still digging out from the last storm this past weekend. At least 50 storm related deaths have been reported amid the bitter cold that came with it.

This morning, power outages, they are improving. Tennessee still leads the way in terms of the outage map, 133,000 customers still in the dark. And our cameras, our crew was there as crews in Nashville were working overnight to get the lights, try and get the lights back on.

CNN's Ivan Rodriguez is in Nashville tracking all of this for us. Ivan, what are you seeing and hearing?

IVAN RODRIGUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Okay, good morning. It's another cold morning here in Nashville, more than a hundred million people are still under cold alerts. And here in this West Nashville neighborhood, we're still seeing power outages. To my right here, you can see how pitch black it still is at this time of the morning. And this is just, again, one example of a vast amount of power outages in this neighborhood. And this is another example of what we're seeing, these uprooted trees. You can see a big tree here that's been uprooted in front of it, a down power line here, still waiting to be repaired. And you can see part of this tree here, all the ice that's been accumulated on these branches.

And making our way back onto this side of the road here with our photojournalist, Michael Calloway, about 16 hours ago, Kate, this big tree here that we saw that was uprooted, it used to block the entire road here. So, at least we know that debris cleanup is active. It's still ongoing. The power restoration is a process. So, like we've heard from officials, that could take days, several days. Some people here are beginning to lose some of that patience that officials are continuing to ask for.

In terms of this power restoration, though, we've seen crews working really around the clock to bring it back. Hear what a one lineman had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES HARPER, NASHVILLE ELECTRIC SERVICES: Just the amount of people that are without power, I don't think in my 25 years I've ever seen 230,000 people out.

With this, it's so widespread. I mean, it's just hitting everybody everywhere. And it seems it's very demanding because you fix something and then, you know, another tree falls.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RODRIGUEZ: And this power line here in the road, you can still sort of see within some of the shadows in the dark crossing over the road here, there's still a lot more work to be done across the city of Nashville. We're still looking at more than a hundred thousand power outages.

And in terms of flights, we've also been keeping a close eye on that. In terms of cancelations in and out of the U.S. today, there's only about more than 700 flight cancelations, which compared to last weekend, we were looking about 10,000 between two days. So, that is definitely getting better. But in terms of these power outages, Kate, there's still a lot more work to be done.

BOLDUAN: Yes, the cleanup really is still just beginning as the one of -- with looking at the East Coast, they could be looking at another round of it, which we're tracking very closely now in the forecast.

Ivan, thank you so much. John?

BERMAN: All right. It is now officially the largest measles outbreak in the U.S. since it had been declared eliminated. Now, how much worse could it get?

This morning, a new timeline for the release of the Epstein files, the ones that, by law, were all supposed to be released more than a month ago.

And emergency touchdown for a NASA plane with no landing gear, a so- called belly landing. New reporting on what went wrong.

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[07:10:00]

BERMAN: A huge day for the Federal Reserve. The expectation is Jerome Powell and the Fed will keep rates where they are, which is not what the president wants. There's even higher intrigue today though, because this is the first time we will hear from Powell since he revealed the Justice Department is investigating him and the Federal Reserve over testimony that he gave to Congress. That investigation has drawn widespread criticism from both Democrats and Republicans.

Let's go right to CNN's senior reporter Matt Egan in Washington.

[07:15:00]

You're always there for this big announcement. I know the Fed chair will be excited to see you. What is the expectation for today?

MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, John, look, today is the first Fed decision of the year, and it's one of the last with Jerome Powell in charge of the Fed. And the president has made no secret of what he wants. He wants lower rates, dramatically lower rates. But the expectation is the Fed is very likely to defy the president today. You can see just a 3 percent chance price into the market of an interest rate cut, 97 percent chance that the Fed does not do anything, and that's because the Fed has already been cutting interest rates, three straight meetings, the Fed cut last year, you could see it on your screen, rates are down to three-year lows.

And economists tell me that it makes a lot of sense that the Fed is likely to pause today. That's because, thankfully, the unemployment rate has stabilized, so that takes some pressure off the Fed from feeling like it needs to come to the rescue. And inflation, unfortunately, is stubborn. It's stuck above that 2 percent target, and the Fed doesn't want to do anything that's going to make inflation go even higher.

Now, as you mentioned, all of this is coming as the Fed faces just this immense amount of pressure from the White House. This is the first time we're going to hear from Fed Chair Powell, since he had that extraordinary statement a few weeks ago where he revealed that the Justice Department has a criminal investigation into the Fed over Powell's testimony about controversial renovations.

And Powell, he really struck a very defiant tone in that video. He made clear that he's not going to bow to any pressure here. He drew a direct line between this investigation and the White House's pressure campaign on the Fed to try to lower interest rates. And as you mentioned, this statement from Powell, you know, it drew a lot of support not just from Democrats but also critically from Republicans as well.

It seemed to kind of reaffirm this notion that messing with Fed independence would be crossing a red line, a red line that should not be crossed, not even during the Trump administration. And this is also the first time we're hearing from Powell since those Supreme Court oral arguments, where conservative justices sounded skeptical about the president's efforts to fire a sitting Fed governor, Lisa Cook, for the first time ever.

Now, John, as far as this decision and press conference today, just a couple things I'm looking for, one, how many dissents are there today? Last time, there were three dissents on both sides. It'll be interesting to hear if anyone other than Fed Governor Stephen Miran dissents. Also, what did Powell say about what it's going to take to cut interest rates any further? Does he think that maybe they're done cutting with him at the helm? And the last question, of course, John, is whether or not Powell's going to address the elephant in the room, which is all of this pressure from the White House. It'll be fascinating to see how all this plays out.

BERMAN: Yes. Will we see a Jerome Powell unplugged, as it were? Stand by for that.

Matt Egan, great to see you. Great to see you. We'll watch and wait.

All right, in a world filled with outrage, it's hard to get more outrageous than this, word that Bill Belichick, who has won more Super Bowls than any coach in history, snubbed by the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

And at long last, they are taking baby out of the corner, a dirty dancing scene.

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[07:20:00] BOLDUAN: He might be considered one of the GOATs. Do they call him GOATs of NFL coaches or can you just be the GOAT? Anyway, he just got majorly snubbed. That is what some of the biggest names in sports are thinking and speaking out about today. According to reports, Bill Belichick did not get enough votes to make it into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

CNN's Andy Scholes has much more. Andy, what happened?

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Yes. Well, I mean, Kate, apparently some voters decided they were going to punish Belichick for these spy gate of the scandal in 2007, because you would think winning six Super Bowls as a head coach, two more as a defensive coordinator, would guarantee you are a first ballot hall of famer. You need 40 out of the 50 votes from the Hall of Fame committee, which is made up of media members and other football experts to get in. So, this means at least, if the reports are true, 11 people did not vote for Belichick on the first ballot.

Now, people across the NFL just sounding off on this. Patrick Mahomes, tweeted insane, don't even understand how this could be possible. J.J. Watt also posted on X, I can't be reading this right. This has to be some knockoff hall of fame or something. It can't be the actual NFL Hall of Fame. There is not a single world whatsoever in which Bill Belichick should not be a first ballot Hall of Fame.

Now, the 2026 Hall of Fame class, it's going to be unveiled at the NFL Honors ceremony a week from tomorrow.

All right, meanwhile, in the NBA, Victor Wembenyama, he was asked for his thoughts on what's been going on in the U.S. right now, and the French native, despite advice from the team, didn't hold back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VICTOR WEMBENYAMA, SAN ANTONIO SPURS CENTER: P.R. has tried, but I'm not going to sit here and give some politically correct, you know. And, I mean, I'm this -- every day I wake up and see the news and I'm horrified. I think that it is crazy that some people might make it seem like, or make it sound like it's acceptable, the murder -- like the murder of civilians acceptable, you know?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: Yes. Wemby and the Spurs, they're at the Rockets tonight in a big Texas showdown.

All right, finally, despite not winning a set in the fourth round or the quarterfinals, Novak Djokovic is onto the semifinals at the Aussie Open. So, in the fourth round, Jakub Mensik couldn't play with an abdominal injury. So, then in the quarters, Djokovic, he was down two sets to none when Lorenzo Mussetti had to retire with a leg injury.

[07:25:07]

So, now Djokovic is set play Jannik Sinner in the semi-finals. He's lost five in a row to the Italian. But, you know, Kate, Djokovic is 38 years old. You know the saying, it's sometimes better to be lucky than good.

BOLDUAN: Yes, my entire career.

SCHOLES: That's it for Djokovic right now. You know, he has won 24 Grand Slam. He's been looking for that 25th one. Most people thought it's just not going to happen anymore because of his age and how good Alcaraz and Sinner are, but maybe the seas are parting here and maybe this is going to be Djokovic's tournament. He even admitted he's lucky to be still in the tournament at this point.

BOLDUAN: I mean, legit, it's just like last man standing, like he's just standing because everyone else is falling ill.

SCHOLES: Need to move on.

BOLDUAN: It's pretty wild, but better to be lucky than good is like the entire mantra of my entire career.

Andy, it is great to see you. Thank you, buddy.

Ahead for us, new details about the man that attacked Congresswoman Ilhan Omar during a town hall last night. Our CNN crew, our Sara Sidner was there.

And scammers may be hitting a new low. How one couple got scammed out of $2,000 thinking that their runaway puppy needed emergency surgery when it was all just artificial intelligence.

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[07:30:00]