Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Border Czar Tom Homan Speaks After Taking Over Minneapolis Immigration Crackdown; Interview with Representative Greg Landsman (D- OH); FBI Searches Georgia Elections Office in Alleged Voter Fraud Probe. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired January 29, 2026 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You want to note, though, on targeted enforcement operations. That similarly hinges on cooperation. Yes, Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans to go after people who have criminal records. That does not foreclose, however, that they can also go after collaterals.

What does that mean? Other undocumented immigrants in the vicinity of that targeted operation. Tom Homan has operated that way for many years, which is why he's underlying, if you let us go to the county jails, if you let us pick up those guys, then we don't have to go out on the streets and do these other targeted operations.

But I do think it's important to note, Sara, because it's likely that going forward, there may be arrests of people who are only -- who only have immigration violations. And that is still part of the conversation here, as they're doing targeted operations.

I also want to note, he said, officers who don't act with professionalism will be dealt with. He talked about standards of conduct that is notable. Of course, much of what we heard from Trump officials has been the support of agents, which he also supports, but notes again that there are standards of conduct here. And on Pretti, he sort of let the investigation or rather said the investigation would be ongoing.

So again, Sara, this is classic Tom Homan. This is his pursuit of immigration enforcement operations. He's a veteran ICE official, and now it's a matter of seeing how this plays out on the ground and what those agreements actually mean between the federal government and the local officials.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. Thanks, Priscilla, for your perspective there. Having covered him for a very long time.

And we should note just the difference in tone between the border czar Tom Homan and the commander, who was here and relieved of his duties here by the president, Greg Bovino.

Thank you to you.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now. ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

SIDNER: The breaking news here out of Minneapolis, we have just heard for the very first time from border czar Tom Homan. He has said he is on the ground for three days. Now we are hearing his public comments as there has been chaos in this city for almost a month now. He says President Trump wants the situation here fixed and that he intends to fix it. He says, "We're not surrendering the president's mission on immigration enforcement here. It will continue."

But he said the mission will improve. No one is perfect. He says the president and he agree certain improvements should and could be made. We will now conduct targeted enforcement. Those are some of the headlines there.

Let's get to our Shimon Prokupecz who is in the room where Tom Homan was speaking to reporters, taking your question and others, and talking to the public.

Let's go to Andrew McCabe. Our reporter is trying to get to his spot.

Andy, what did you hear from Tom Homan? And I do just cannot stress this enough how different his tone and tenor was compared to Greg Bovino, who was the person on the ground with all of the chaos. You're seeing a very different tone from the border czar.

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Absolutely, Sara. So you're seeing a very different tone, a very different change in substance of what the remarks are. And, you know, not -- you know, also, significantly a change in visuals, right? Greg Bovino was there as the leader of the effort, the immigration effort in Minneapolis, and he appeared everywhere on the street or in a press conference, full uniform, vest, tear gas canisters hanging from his vest, often wearing a helmet involved with his hands-on operations.

Here you have Tom Homan, who presents himself as a member of the administration, very professional. His rhetoric was really toned down from anything you ever would have heard from Mr. Bovino. So this is a very specific, concerted effort by the administration to mark a change here, which is probably a good thing for everybody.

One of the points that I really -- I think needs some light shed on it is this idea of agreements with the jails and coming to some sort of agreement with local authorities. Mr. Homan talked about that a lot. I think it's important to point out that this system that people refer to as detainers, what that means is when somebody has been placed into removal proceedings, but they are also going through the criminal justice process that DHS places a detainer on their record, which basically tells law enforcement, if you have this person in custody and you're going to release them, please call us first because we will take them into immigration custody.

So what's clear now is that the state prison system has been honoring detainers forever. That's never been a problem.

[09:05:01] It's also clear that Minneapolis doesn't actually have a jail. Minneapolis doesn't run a jail. They use the Hennepin County Jail for their prisoners, and they have now struck some sort of an agreement with Hennepin County that Hennepin County will do the same thing. They'll inform ICE when they're prepared to release someone who has a detainer. So that's all progress. But it raises the question of why has the administration been continuously attacking the city, and particularly Mayor Frey, when he's not actually in a position to strike an agreement to start facilitating immigration operations?

So it's just one of the things that I noted in the course of the press conference that we really haven't heard much about before.

SIDNER: It's a really good note, which is part of why you're here, because you're going to see things we don't see that are really significant. And I should mention, you mentioned Mayor Frey, Mayor Frey last night in our town hall was very clear in that he believes this isn't about safety from President Trump. This isn't just about immigration.

He believes this is about retribution because the mayor came out very strongly against the ICE operations here, saying, get ICE out of our city. They have caused enough harm and damage. So it is interesting that you note that he is not in a position because, of course, Minneapolis doesn't run the jails. It is almost in every city. The sheriff's department that runs the jails and the county that runs the jails. So an important note there.

Let me go now to Shimon Prokupecz. He has managed to get to his camera in the tussle there, as people are trying to get out of the room.

Thank you so much, Shimon. I know I heard you questioning the border czar this morning. What did you learn in there? Give us some sense of if you got some real concrete answers as to what will happen going forward.

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, we certainly know what's going to go forward, right? Like there's no doubt, right? They've realized, the administration, they realized they were in a very bad situation. And, you know, they in many ways admitted it. I mean, to hear Tom Homan sit there, stand there and say, that's right, I said it. We're going to draw down.

But no one, when I asked him that question, how did we even get here? Let's think about that for a second, because I think it's important. And perhaps the administration and the folks here want to move on from what happened. But two people have died, and it took the death of Alex Pretti for us to get here.

But think about this, Sara. And we've both been covering this. This immigration action and this kind of enforcement has been going on for months. Out west, Chicago, parts of Illinois. Greg Bovino and his Border Patrol agents were hitting the streets and essentially terrorizing and creating fear within these communities. I'm not saying this. The people who live in these communities have told us this. And then they came to here, came to Minneapolis. And obviously we have

seen what has happened. There needs to be accountability. And it's not necessarily Tom Homan's job to bring that accountability, but that needs to happen because we need to know how did we get here, who was making these decisions to allow Greg Bovino, Greg Bovino, the commander of Border Patrol, to be the face of this interior immigration operation, which as those of us who have covered this know that that usually falls under the -- under ICE and the removal operations and the officers that are assigned to those units to do very targeted, as Tom Homan spoke about, very targeted and specific enforcement action to remove people who are here with criminal history or who have been under arrest.

And it seems, though while they are acknowledging that, well, things didn't work here and perhaps things did go too far, and now we need to draw down, you can't just move on from what has happened here and what has happened to this community and to other communities.

The other thing I want to know, and I think this is going to get kind of looked over, but Tom Homan said something very interesting. Someone asked him about, OK, well, what will this drawdown look like? When will we start seeing things change here? You know what he said? He said that some of these officers and agents have been in theater for eight months. Right? Go back and look at that.

SIDNER: Eight months.

PROKUPECZ: And what that means is essentially they have been dealing with these communities. They have been face to face with protesters and these observers and the people blowing whistles and admitted in some ways that it has been a lot for them.

[09:10:02]

And the agitation that they have certainly faced, many of these officers, you know, it gets to them and we could certainly see that in the way that they were reacting to some of the observers, to some of the protesters, and in some cases reacting excessively. So I think that's an important point, too, that he made here.

And I also just couple other things. You know, they are kind of trying to say, well, we have come to an agreement with the local officials about the jails, and making sure we are notified when our people who are here, who are -- have been arrested or about to be released, well, the state, the State Corrections Department has been doing that.

And then also, it was interesting to watch that Tom Homan was praising them for that when we would hear from Greg Bovino, who was sort of saying, well, they're not doing enough. And they were -- also there were questions about the people that they were saying that they were detaining or arresting, ICE and Border Patrol. Meanwhile, these were people that the state corrections was turning over.

So we have learned a lot here. And it's going to certainly, I think it's so important here, Sara, you have been covering this community. I have been covering this community. I think that they will hopefully feel some optimism from this, some sense of relief from this. It's just going to be very painful and sad that it took the death of two people for this administration to realize that maybe they were going too far, and that the escalation just went too far.

It's going to be interesting to see how these targeted operations will continue here. I think from what I could hear from Tom Homan is that it's going to go back to the traditional way in which ICE operated. Quietly, targeted, knowing who their subjects are. So I think, look, let's see what happens, right? And I think we just cannot forget what happened here and the accountability that needs to occur. And let's see what happens.

SIDNER: Yes, I think you bring up a really important point there, Shimon, because what you're seeing from Homan is a recognition that things did not go right, that the way in which the actions of federal agents here have been conducted were not proper, and that they are changing how they are operating, as you said, sort of back to the way the traditional operations would be held, very targeted.

They know who they're after, they know what their history is. They know about where they are. And so it's not like a sweep of 3,000 agents across the city looking to pick up whomever they can, for example, at checkpoints that we understand people have been picked about, that actually have legal papers.

I do want to get now to Representative Greg Landsman, Democrat from Ohio, who has been watching all that's been happening here on the ground.

Representative, let me let you listen to exactly what the border czar Tom Homan said about the plans here going forward. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM HOMAN, BORDER CZAR: This is common sense cooperation that allows us to draw down on the number of people we have here. Yes, I said it. Draw down the number of people here because we have the efficiency and safety of the jails in the prison. Matter of fact, I have staff from CBP and from ICE working on a drawdown plan.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: OK. "We are going to draw down. Yes, I said it. Draw down." But he did add, we are not surrendering the president's mission on immigration enforcement. It will continue here.

What are your thoughts on what you heard from the border czar?

REP. GREG LANDSMAN (D-OH): Well, I think it all depends on what happens next. I mean, you know, they have to focus entirely on public safety. They've created this public safety crisis in Minneapolis. They've got to fix that. He claims he's going to fix that. I think it's important for everyone to wait and see if, in fact, he's going to fix it, if they're going to leave, and they have been lying about what's happened. They've been defying court orders to turn over evidence. That has to

change. They have to start, you know, working with local law enforcement, not just on public safety and returning public safety to Minneapolis, but also on the evidence and making sure that we get all of the facts and folks are held accountable so it doesn't happen again. So that's what I think most people are going to wait for, is to see what actually happens.

And will they focus entirely on public safety, keeping Americans safe? And will they start to cooperate with local law enforcement so that everything that's happened can be investigated and those folks who, you know, were responsible for wrongdoing are held accountable again so this doesn't happen ever again anywhere in Minneapolis or anywhere else.

[09:15:22]

SIDNER: I do want to point out something that he was asked about, and that is, we heard from the FBI director on a podcast that he was going -- that the FBI was going to be looking into the group chats, the WhatsApp chats or the Signal chats of those who have been protesting here, of the residents who have used those apparatuses to talk to one another, to tell people, hey, ICE is in our neighborhood, blow the whistle, et cetera, et cetera.

And he was asked whether or not those individuals will be getting arrested. What do you make of the fact that he says, well, I can't say a lot, but they will be held accountable. The focus of the investigation, and of course, you can do two things at once, but one of the focuses has been on the people, for example, on Renee Good's family after she was killed, now on the protesters after Alex Pretti was killed. What do you make of that? Is that the right thing for the FBI to be doing right now?

LANDSMAN: Yes. I don't know why the FBI is focused on Americans and going after Americans. This is, as you've seen, as I've seen, protests, peaceful protests. So I don't think that they want to start criminalizing folks who are protesting peacefully. And, you know, that gets at the constitutional rights that people have under the First Amendment to show up in their communities and say, I don't like this.

So I hope that he's just playing to the crowd, to the Trump base and that they're not going to actually start investigating and going after these people. That will backfire, too. Most Americans across political affiliations do not want this. They don't want to see the chaos in Minneapolis or other places. They want to see law enforcement working together. They want people to comply with the judge's order.

They want things investigated. They want people to tell the truth, and they don't want American citizens who are protesting to, you know, be investigated because, you know, the administration doesn't like them.

SIDNER: Yes. I mean, look, I think we need to bring it back to the terribly emotional issue of two Americans had to die before there was some sort of change in the way in which the department, the Trump administration, has decided to act here. I do want to lastly ask you, if this funding bill going forward that

will fund the government for more time, if it has moneys for ICE in it, for Border Patrol in it, are you willing to support it?

LANDSMAN: No, not at the moment. I mean, look, they need to pursue a wholesale change in order to keep people safe. You know, they have created this chaos, created violence. Two people have been killed. They tear-gassed an infant. You know, it wasn't on video, so it didn't get as much attention. But they tear-gassed an infant. The mom had to provide CPR. They would not help.

And so until there are wholesale changes at DHS, no, I wouldn't support any additional funding. And most of my colleagues won't either. I hope Republicans will join us because that's the only way you're going to get big change as opposed to, you know, a good press conference today. We need big change --

(CROSSTALK)

SIDNER: Are you willing to shut the -- are you are you willing to shut the government down over it? Are you willing to shut the government down over it?

LANDSMAN: No. We passed most of the funding bills and the Republicans just have to decide to move all of the funding bills forward. We'll support all of the funding bills. DHS is the only one. And they could pull out ICE and fund every other aspect of DHS. So, no, they hopefully will do the right thing and just have us debate about ICE until this is fixed.

SIDNER: Representative Landsman, thank you so much for taking the time with us this morning.

There is much more news ahead. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:24:02]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. New this morning 2020 election ballots from Fulton County, Georgia, are now in the hands of the FBI after agents executed a warrant and searched an elections office.

Now, President Trump lost Georgia in 2020. He was crushed in Fulton County. But these, you know, baseless accusations of fraud have been coming from Donald Trump and a lot of his supporters all the way since 2020. Local officials have repeatedly said there was no fraud.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARVIN ARRINGTON JR., FULTON COUNTY COMMISSIONER: This is a full frontal attack on democracy. This is a code red in America, in Fulton County.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BERMAN: CNN legal analyst Elliot Williams is with us now. I should note Elliot is also the author of a great book called "Five Bullets" about the Bernie Goetz case here in New York. It is a fantastic read. I finished it this weekend. That's for another time.

Elliot, I do want to ask you about what happened in Georgia. Just the entry level here, which is these agents searched this and seized the elections headquarters.

[09:25:07]

To do so, they needed a warrant. So people look at that and say, hey, a judge had to sign off on that. What does that mean?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Not a lot. The standard for getting a warrant is relatively low, John. It's probable cause that there's some evidence there of some wrongdoing or a crime. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that they have enough to convict. It doesn't necessarily mean that they even found anything that's useful. But yes, a judge would have signed off on a warrant to enter those premises.

BERMAN: And before, again, we get to the big picture, just one other highly unusual aspect of this. The director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, was on the scene, photographed for being there. How unusual is that? Is this part of her job?

WILLIAMS: It is not part of her job unless there's some evidence or -- you know, John, I'm just sort of perplexed by this because I don't really quite know what they're looking for because these issues have been so well tried over the last six years at this point.

Now, is there some national security nexus to what they think they're finding in this election office in Georgia? I don't know, but certainly this is the kind of thing that the FBI, if anybody in the federal government would investigate, the FBI would have it under control. So why the director of National Intelligence is there is a little bit odd.

BERMAN: OK. So now, Elliott, put this into the larger context of what questions you have as a lawyer and also what questions you have about, you know, there have been all kinds of audits of the 2020 election in Georgia over time. So what's going on?

WILLIAMS: Yes, I have no idea what's going on. And, you know, forgive me for just giving such an inconclusive answer, John. But think about the number of times that various people, both inside and outside of the executive branch, the White House, have looked at this issue. Multiple lawsuits have been filed by the president and people around him, alleging some sort of fraud in Fulton County, Georgia, and they were all or overwhelmingly dismissed as not having grounds to succeed.

The president's former attorney general, William Barr, also looked into this issue, and he himself found that there was not evidence to support allegations of widespread fraud in Fulton County, Georgia. It's just simply not there based on all of the entities that have looked at this. Now, it seems that there's a little bit of a grievance mission here happening from the president, who has been outspoken about his concerns about the leadership in Fulton County, Georgia, and how that was one of the entities that prosecuted him.

That may be what's going on here. Just a vendetta against these folks in Georgia. But as of right now, on January, what is it, 29th, 2026, there simply has not been evidence of widespread voter irregularities or fraud in Fulton County, Georgia, in the 2020 election. It just isn't or hasn't been demonstrated to be there yet.

BERMAN: And just also happening, the administration asking for voter rolls from all kinds of states. What does that even mean, Elliot?

WILLIAMS: That -- right. That's a big deal. And believe it or not, John, this is the kind of thing that really rankles privacy advocates both on the right and left. They have sought the voter rolls and voter data, which could be party registration data, personal information and other background info on people. And I believe it's about two dozen or 24 states.

Now, why they would seek that is beyond me or any sort of many other people who look into these privacy issues. Another important note here is that people may not -- viewers may not know this, elections are administered at the state level and not the federal level. So whenever the federal government starts looking into individual questions of voter registration or how votes proceed in states, it ought to set off people's radar.

It's a big concern. And it's something, quite frankly, that the framers put into the Constitution that states would administer voting at the statewide level. So people ought to be concerned by this until the White House or the federal government or the DOJ can demonstrate or at least articulate why they're seeking this kind of data, it ought to really cause some concerns.

BERMAN: Yes, it shouldn't be the White House.

Elliot Williams, legal analyst, fantastic author. Great to see you this morning. Thank you very much.

And the breaking news, we just heard moments ago, President Trump's border czar Tom Homan says that they are working on a drawdown plan for the federal immigration efforts inside Minneapolis. A drawdown plan. He also said they're going to now do targeted operations and he admitted they got away from that.

Brand new forecast of a bomb cyclone headed toward the East Coast just days after a deadly winter storm hit the same area.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)