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Powell Vows to Stand Firm Amid DOJ Investigation into the Fed; Man Charged with Assault After Spraying Substance at Rep. Omar; White House Damage Control After Fatal Shooting of Alex Pretti; Potential Bomb Cyclone Could Slam East Coast this Weekend. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired January 28, 2026 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

DR. ANNA-KATHRYN BURCH, PEDIATRIC INFECTIOUS DISEASE PHYSICIAN, PRISMA HEALTH: So really the increased rate of hospitalizations, infections, those kind of things happen after a person gets measles because your risk for secondary bacterial infections increases significantly after someone has the measles.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: It is just something you really don't want to get, and you really don't have to get if you go out there and get vaccinated. Dr. Anna-Kathryn Burch, great to see you this morning. Thank you very much.

A brand new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

BOLDUAN: So the breaking news this morning, a congresswoman attacked at a town hall in Minneapolis, a suspect now under arrest. And also now what President Trump is saying about it, trying to accuse the congresswoman of staging it.

Plus the Fed chairman steps back into the spotlight today. The Federal Reserve set to make its first rate decision of the year and we're going to hear from the Fed chair himself for the first time since DOJ launched an investigation into him.

And a terrifying situation unfolding for miles in Sicily. Look at this, a landslide leaving homes hanging off a cliff, thousands forced to evacuate.

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'm Sara Sidener here live in Minneapolis where we were at a town hall when Congresswoman Ilhan Omar was attacked. She was sprayed with some kind of substance that someone had in a syringe. A man was at the town hall sitting very close to the front row, jumps up and then pushes some sort of liquid out of the syringe.

I can tell you that it smelled like vinegar in the room. It was quite strong and it permeated the room. Her staff obviously very, very tense at the time, concerned for her and for their own safety as well as the 200 or so people who came to listen to their representative. Now she has these town halls monthly and her staff told us that she has never faced any sort of attack like this. She has, like many other members of congress, faced the threats that come, death threats that come to her on a semi-regular basis. But this was the first time in her own city where she was attacked by someone.

Now her security detail jumped on him a few seconds after he tried to get close to the congresswoman, but she herself actually cocked her arm back and looked like she was about to lunge towards him when this happened. And she reminded us all that she is a person who has survived war and said that she will not be intimidated. Here's what she told me in an exclusive as she was walking out of the room to get checked medically.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Representative Omar, are you OK?

REP. ILHAN OMAR (D-MN): You know, I'm going to go figure if I am, but I feel OK. I feel that it is important for people, whether they are in elected office 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 (on camera): Now you heard her say, I think I'm OK. And she's saying that because none of us still know what that substance was that did have a pungent smell to it. No one knows exactly what it is.

And of course there is now an investigation. She did speak with police. She was able to get medically checked out.

There was an ambulance that showed up not long after the attack happened. But it was really a tense moment, a scary moment for those who were there, including of course the Congresswoman herself. But she defied her detail and said, look, I won't be intimidated.

I am going to continue talking to my constituents during this town hall that we set aside for a good hour so that they could hear my thoughts on what is happening here on the ground with the insurgents of ICE agents coming to this city, her city, that she -- part of her place that she represents. I do want to mention also, because we are hearing from the president on what happened to Ilhan Omar. Instead of calling her, as would be the normal course of events when someone is attacked, often the president will, you know, in general terms, call up someone and check to see if they are OK and how they are doing, no matter what party they are in.

Here is what he said to ABC News. He told ABC News after he was asked about what happened to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, what he thought happened.

[08:05:00] He says, "No, I don't think about her. I think she is a fraud. I really don't think about that. She probably had herself sprayed, knowing her."

So he is trying to start this conspiracy theory that Ilhan Omar herself somehow orchestrated this. That is a lie.

We were there in the room. We saw what happened. This man jumped up, seemed very disheveled, and then was tackled to the ground.

She was frightened by this, but she did try to fight back in her own way. That is what we saw on the ground. Meantime, you have this whole issue, this whole apparatus here of the president trying to figure out, it seems, how to de-escalate the situation, but then you hear comments like that, and it escalates things right back to where they were -- John and Kate.

BERMAN: All right, Sara, I'll take it. Thank you so much. Inside the White House this morning, damage control, a lot of fingers being pointed over the Trump administration's false claim that Alex Pretti, the man fatally shot in Minneapolis, was out to massacre federal agents, an accusation just not supported by the video we've all seen.

Multiple sources suggested to Axios that the language came from the president's hardline adviser, Stephen Miller, with one source saying, quote, "Miller "heard gun" and knew what the narrative would be. Pretti came to massacre cops." Miller, for his part, said quote, "Any early comments made were based on information sent to the White House through Customs and Border Protection."

With us now is Marc Caputo, the senior politics reporter for Axios, who really broke this story yesterday. Marc, as always, I'm really excited to talk to you since you were out so far in front of this story. I put together a little flow chart based on your reporting here of who is being blamed and how inside the White House and inside the administration.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is blaming Stephen Miller. Stephen Miller appears to be blaming Customs and Border Protection. Do I have that correct?

MARC CAPUTO, SENIOR POLITICS REPORTER, AXIOS: I mean, generally, what I do know is that Noem is feeling the heat, obviously in Capitol Hill and elsewhere. And she's told people and I'm told she also told the president, look, everything I've said is because of what I've been told to say and do by the president and Stephen Miller. And as you pointed out, Miller is saying that statement that was released came because of on the ground reports from CBP.

And specifically what you're hearing more people in the White House start to say is the bad guy in all of this -- and I'm putting bad guy in air quotes -- is Greg Bovino, who was the commander, the cowboy in the words of one person, who was in charge of this. Let's call a shambolic operation that resulted in the deaths of two people in the shooting of a total of three in a month. BERMAN: Yes, there are two separate things. I think we should point out here that Miller now seems to be saying to you and others. Number one, that CBP, that the officers on the ground broke some kind of protocol, some kind of instructions they've been given by the White House about how they were supposed to behave, actually enforce the law.

But also Miller is saying that he was told perhaps misleading stuff by CBP. Those are two things. But are those both directionally what Stephen Miller saying now?

CAPUTO: Yes, that's correct. According to the White House, according to Miller, there is a protocol that they had developed where these teams, these squads that would go on these immigration raids or to execute these warrants or find in their words, these criminal aliens would be divided in two. One group would do crowd control to stop what they call the disruptors and the other would go and do the arrests. And according to them, on this fateful day on Saturday, that just sort of devolved into chaos and none of that took place.

Obviously, in the background of this, there have been other videos, other cases of pretty egregious policing that had happened under Bovino. Specifically, there was the young man at Target, the Target worker who was pushing around grocery store carts, gotten some sort of jawboning incident with these agents.

They tackled him. They kind of beat him. They shoved him in a van, and they dropped him off nearby. Stuff like that did start to really rankle at the president.

And finally, the president made his change on Monday.

BERMAN: Yes, I was going to say, so based on your reporting, you know, if we have this chart of a blame game, you know, where does the president fit here? As far as you can tell, who is the president blaming for all this?

CAPUTO: He's not really blaming anyone. It's just one of those sort of, hey, things sort of happen and let's move on. One of the things the president doesn't want to do is communicate a weakness that he's backing off.

And in that, under that umbrella is the idea that he needs to make a change. So let's just be very clear. Kristi Noem, from all of the information we're getting and from all the observations that we've made collectively as the news media and those of us who cover the White House specifically, Kristi Noem is staying.

And so is Stephen Miller, his longest serving political advisor. Trump's -- from Trump, one architect of the immigration plan, a guy with encyclopedic knowledge of immigration law, who really sort of represents a lot of the hardline policies that Trump at heart really does enjoy.

[08:10:00] BERMAN: And then just very quickly, any bit of reporting that you've done that indicates that Noem or Miller or anyone might apologize for the statements that they made just after this incident happened on Saturday?

CAPUTO: I have gotten no indication of that. We've asked if, hey, do you want to issue at least some sort of correcting information? And so far, the answer to that has been no.

BERMAN: Mark Caputo, as I said, great reporting on this. You were out in front with this yesterday. Really appreciate your time this morning. Thank you -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: A bomb cyclone could be the next winter storm threatening the East Coast. The latest forecast, the timing, that's ahead.

Plus, the Federal Reserve set to make its first rate decision of the year. And then the first public comments from Fed Chairman Jerome Powell since he spoke out against the criminal investigation that the Justice Department has launched against him.

And a NASA plane -- take a look at this -- making a belly landing, a landing without landing gear. What happened here?

[08:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All right, happening now, a new winter storm threatening the East Coast and not just any winter storm, a bomb cyclone. Let's get right to CNN Meteorologist Allison Chinchar for the latest on this. What are you seeing, Allison?

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: All right. So a lot of the cold air is still in place from the last few days. And having that cold air in place is what's going to allow that storm to bring a lot of snow to some areas.

Now, every single one of these dots you see here on this map represents a potential record low over the next several days. And in some cases, they could break record lows multiple days in a row. And so you have that first shot of cold.

But then as we get to the end of the week, we've got this reinforcing shot of cold. And look at how far south that goes. You know, Florida was largely spared from the last round of cold air, not going to be the case for this particular one.

We've got temperatures below 40 degrees, making it all the way down to some of those Miami suburbs. Here's a look at where the potential setup could be. So here's the low pressure system.

And what we are a little bit more confident in is having some of that snow along the southern fringe of this storm, say the Carolinas and into Virginia. It's the northern portion of this storm that we may or may not end up getting some decent snowfall from. And that's because if it goes on a western track, this is what it's expected to do.

But if it takes more of an easterly track, more of that moisture stays out to sea. Now, the one thing the northeast will certainly get out of this is still the very potent winds. But this is what we're looking at in terms of the forecast snow accumulations. Again, you can see the Carolinas in Virginia still looking at several inches in a few spots of that pink, meaning we could even have a few places that get 6, 8, even 10 inches of snow out of the system again, depending on exactly where the track lines up.

One thing that is a bit more of high confidence is the incredibly gusty winds, because as that low slides up, it's really going to spread in all of the eastern seaboard. You can see through here. Again, basically from South Carolina up through Massachusetts, getting some of those very strong wind gusts, 30, 40, 50, even as much as 70 mile an hour wind gusts. So if you do get some snow, it's going to pick up that snow, blow it all around, reducing visibility, making it very difficult to drive in some of these areas.

Here's a look at the forecast Euro. Again, by Sunday morning, again, you see a lot of that purple color right through there. So you're talking the Cape areas of, say, Hartford, Connecticut, possibly getting some of these. Providence, Rhode Island, looking at the potential for some snow.

Here's a look at the GFS. Notice it's a little bit farther to the west, not by much, but just enough that a few other areas could in turn end up getting a little bit more snow out of this system. Now, again, which one of these ends up being the more accurate?

That's what we're going to have to wait a couple more days. But the one thing we mentioned that is for certain, it's going to be cold and it's going to be windy.

BERMAN: Yes, I got to say the wind not welcome with all the snow and ice all over the trees up here, so that could create some dangerous situations. Allison, thank you so much.

Doctors and veterans warn an abortion ban at the VA is putting lives at risk.

And a town left teetering on the edge of a cliff after a major landslide. Look at that.

[08:20:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: It is Federal Reserve Day. The central bank set to make its latest rate announcement. President Trump wants interest rates cut.

He has made that abundantly clear. The expectation, though, is that rates will remain unchanged. And that's just one piece of the story today.

Also, this will be the first time that we will hear from Fed Chairman Jerome Powell since his pretty remarkable public statement and rebuke of the president. Powell revealed that the Justice Department is now investigating him and the Federal Reserve.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEROME POWELL, FEDERAL RESERVE CHAIR: I have carried out my duties without political fear or favor, focused solely on our mandate of price stability and maximum employment. Public service sometimes requires standing firm in the face of threats. I will continue to do the job the Senate confirmed me to do with integrity and a commitment to serving the American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: That was just weeks ago. Let's see what we learned today. With me now is senior markets reporter at Axios, Madison Mills.

It's good to see you, Madison. So the expectations I mentioned is that rates will stay where they are. But what's the important perspective, though, around this?

What are you watching for with this today?

MADISON MILLS, SENIOR MARKETS REPORTER, AXIOS: I mean, I'd be shocked if the first questions to Powell out of that presser are not about this investigation from the Department of Justice that you just laid out, especially because he had such for him what was such a clear and quick response to that investigation, which is a little bit atypical of Powell, who's had a little bit more of an I'm not commenting on the administration's pressure on the Fed approach in the past when he's been asked about the Trump administration pressuring the Fed to lower rates or even firing him.

He has said this kind of memeable quote on Wall Street, but he's just said not permittable under the law and left it at that and not given any other answers in the presser. So it'll be very interesting to see if he's a little bit more vocal this time around. When it comes to usually watch at these meetings, is that rate decision.

It's very clear and all but certain that they're going to keep interest rates at the same level. So not as much to watch on that front. It'll be a little bit more of a political meeting that we're used to.

BOLDUAN: Also, what about the new read we just got on consumer sentiment? Confidence is collapsing to what was the lowest level since 2014. I mean, what should that new read on how people are feeling tell the White House, tell the private sector, tell investors, tell all of us?

[08:25:00]

MILLS: It's such an important metric right now because we continue to see that the economic data that we've relied on for decades to set interest rates is not painting a picture that's in line with how consumers are telling us they feel. In fact, over the last few months, post-government shut down when we've started to get data back in.

It looks like the labor market is actually doing OK. Today's news on layoffs is withstanding. Inflation data has been looking a little bit better and trending in the right direction.

Then you have these consumer sentiment numbers really falling off a cliff, indicating that consumers are really worried about their jobs right now. You don't have to have a huge spike in layoffs for that to happen. That can happen because of, I don't know, massive technology that everyone's afraid is going to take their jobs popping up and getting more popular, right?

So that's a challenge for companies to address. But for the Federal Reserve, consumer sentiment isn't really going to be something that they're taking into account. Really, this mostly impacts the Trump administration that's been trying to push this affordability message.

And clearly, it's not resonating with voters, especially when you look at consumer sentiment amongst Republicans also cratering over the last month.

BOLDUAN: Yes, I was going to play it. We don't have time. Exactly what you're saying is the White House or President Trump, he isn't getting it.

I mean, just yesterday in Iowa, he was supposed to go there to talk affordability. He says our economy is booming, incomes are rising, investment is soaring, inflation has been defeated. Not how people are feeling. It's great to see you.

Thank you so much for your use of, oh, I don't know. I think I'm going to need to steal that and use that a little bit more today. Thank you.

Coming up for us, Latino voters helped President Donald Trump win in 2024. How are they now reacting to these immigration enforcement operations, this crackdown we're seeing, especially in places like Minnesota? We've got new numbers running them on that ahead.

And also new this morning, strong winds toppled a Ferris wheel in Portugal. Two storm-related deaths reported. We've got details on this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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