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American Chloe Kim Eyeing History in Halfpipe Today; Trump Says It Will Be Very Traumatic for Iran if They Don't Make a Deal; Trump Revokes EPA's Ability to Regulate Climate Pollution; Trump Comments on Controversial Voter ID Bill; Congress Running Out of Time to Reach Deal on DHS Funding; Judge Blocks Pentagon From Cutting Sen. Kelly's Retirement Pay; Grand Jury Rejects Indictment of Six Democratic Lawmakers. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired February 12, 2026 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: -- action today, actually ongoing, Chloe Kim, she's going for a three-peat in the halfpipe. No Olympian has ever won three straight snowboard halfpipes. She has a chance to three-peat, so maybe a little more history from Team USA in the hours to come.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": All right, we'll be looking for that. And I just want to correct myself because I said that Heraskevych is a speed skater. No, Heraskevych is a skeleton, which sort of makes him --

WIRE: That's correct.

KEILAR: -- the skate, in a way. It's almost like a human skate, right? I just want to be very clear about that. We've got to get our sports right here.

Coy Wire, thank you so much, live for us from Italy. And a new hour of "CNN News Central" starts right now.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": The search for Nancy Guthrie now in its 12th day. Investigators urging neighbors for help, asking for surveillance footage from their doorbell cameras, going back nearly three weeks before the 84-year-old's disappearance.

Plus, President Trump's immigration crackdown in Minnesota coming to an end after weeks of nationwide outrage and the deaths of two U.S. citizens. And the FAA abruptly grounding all flights in El Paso, Texas for ten days, just to turn around and lift those same restrictions hours later.

We have new details behind the chaos and why a specialized military laser led to the fallout. We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to "CNN News Central."

We actually want to start this hour with President Trump, live right now taking questions at the White House. Let's listen. DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A big factor in making our country great. If you look at some of these cars, they didn't even work. They had computers all over the place, trying to save a half an ounce of fuel. We have fuel for the next 500 to 1,000 years under our feet, and they're trying like hell to save a half an ounce of fuel. The whole thing is just crazy.

Please, go ahead, please.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, is climate cooperation with China no longer in America's interest? And could you please confirm that you are going to visit China the first week of April?

TRUMP: Yeah, I'll be visiting President Xi in April. Look forward to it. He's coming here later in the year. And I look very much forward to it. No, our relationship with China is very good right now.

And this is, you know, not relevant too much having to do with China, what we're announcing today. But no, my relationship with President Xi is very good. Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, following your meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu yesterday, has your thinking changed at all as it relates to these negotiations with Iran or the timeline with Iran?

TRUMP: We have to make a deal. Otherwise, it's going to be very traumatic, very traumatic. I don't want that to happen, but we have to make a deal. They should have made a deal the first time, and they got Midnight Hammer instead. And this will be very traumatic for Iran if they don't make a deal. Look, if they don't make a deal, then it'll be a different story.

But we had a very good meeting yesterday with Bibi Netanyahu and he understands, but it's ultimately up to me. If the deal isn't a very fair deal and a very good deal with Iran, then it's going to be, I think, a very difficult time for them. In the back? I guess over the next month, something like that. Yeah, it shouldn't take -- I mean, it should happen quickly. They should agree very quickly. Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, we might be heading into a partial government shutdown. When was the last time you spoke with Chuck Schumer? And do you still feel Democrats are negotiating in good faith?

TRUMP: Well, a week ago I spoke. But, you know, we have to protect our law enforcement. Actually, the Supreme Court gave a ruling -- or one of the courts gave a very big ruling on masks, that you have the right to use them, you know, for personal protection if you want. So I don't know how that interjects.

You know, they want our law enforcement to be totally vulnerable and put them in a lot of danger. They have some things that are really very hard to -- very, very hard to approve, frankly. As you know, it's only -- we had various over the other bills. That's all done. But we're left with this one. We have to protect our law enforcement. Very important. Please. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why does Prime Minister Netanyahu want you to stop negotiating with Iran?

TRUMP: He is -- you're saying stop entertaining, stop talking to them? Didn't say that. We didn't discuss that. I'll talk to them as long as I like, and we'll see if we can get a deal with them. And if we can't, we'll have to go to phase two. Phase two will be very tough for them. I'm not looking for that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, there are currently zero Israeli hostages left in Gaza because of you.

TRUMP: Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you for that. And now, that the war is ending in Gaza and Israel, I wanted to ask, do you believe Bibi bears any responsibility for the security failures that we saw on October 7th?

TRUMP: Well, October 7th was a rough time, and I guess everybody is responsible (inaudible) look. But it was a terrible attack. It was a sneak attack. It was as violent as -- you know, unfortunately, I've seen some of the results at levels that probably even you, good reporter, but probably you haven't seen.

[14:05:00]

It was a horrible thing that took place. People were surprised. It was a surprise attack. Nobody saw that coming. He didn't see it coming. Nobody else would have seen it coming if they were in his position. I don't believe. But I can tell you he's been a very good wartime prime minister. He's been very strong.

We've worked with him very well. We had tremendous success with Iran and everything else we've done. And he really has been -- he's been extraordinary as far as a wartime prime minister. Not easy. And you have a president that refuses to give him a pardon.

I think a man should be ashamed of himself, a pardon over this trial that's going on. The president of Israel, the primary power, he's got his power to give pardons. And he's not -- you know, he said he's given it five different times, but he doesn't want to do it because I guess he loses his power.

I think the people of Israel should really shame him. He's disgraceful for not giving it. He should give it.

But Bibi has been a great wartime prime minister, and I've been the best friend to Israel, I think, that they've ever had. A lot of people say beyond precedence that they've ever had. And we will continue to be. Yes, ma'am.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to say that, Mr. President, voter ID polls very well nationally. Even the majority of Democrat voters want it.

TRUMP: Right.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So why do you think Senate Democrats are resisting the SAVE Act, and what is your strategy and realistic pathway to getting the SAVE Act passed to ensure free and fair elections for the next generation?

TRUMP: Yes. It's such a great question. I appreciate it, actually, because it's called the SAVE America Act. We've changed the name. It's the SAVE America Act, and the Democrats are against it. I heard one of them say, we will stop the SAVE America Act. No, we're trying to save America and it has to do with largely voting.

And basically, it's got three very simple points. It's got voter ID, photo ID, but voter ID with a photo, right? It's got the confirmation of U.S. citizenship. You have to be a citizen to have a vote. You have an ID. That's about a 99 percent one, and I think 90 percent with Democrats. Then you have confirmation U.S. citizenship. That's about a 99 percent one with Republicans, about 86 percent with Democrats, except Democrat politicians because they cheat on elections.

And then you have no mail-in ballots. And it would be no mail-in ballots, very important. You know, we're the only country in the world that does a system like we do. We're the only country in the world that has mail-in ballots. The way we do this is unbelievable. It guarantees cheating.

So it's no mail-in ballots with the exception of disability, illness, military, or if you're traveling, you can get an exemption. You know, if you happen to be out of the country for a good reason, you can have an exemption. So with exceptions, it's no mail-in ballots. And that will assure the security of our crooked elections. We have crooked elections. Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, have you fired or disciplined that staffer who posted the video from your account that included the Obamas?

TRUMP: No, I haven't. That was a video on, as you know, voter fraud. And fairly long video, and they had a little piece, and it had to do with the Lion King. It's been very well -- it's been shown all over the place long before that was posted. But that was a very strong -- and I'm sure you saw it -- a very strong piece on voter fraud. And the piece that you're talking about was all over the place many times, I believe, for years.

Yeah, please.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, were you aware that Secretary of Commerce visited Epstein's Island? And do you continue to have --

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: No, I wasn't aware of it, no. I didn't -- I actually haven't spoken to him about it. I wasn't. But from what I hear, he was there with his wife and children. And I guess, in some cases, some people were. I wasn't. I was never there. Somebody will someday say that. I was never there. Yeah, please.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This announcement that you made today, Mr. President, comes on the heels of a January Jobs Report that smashed industry expectations.

TRUMP: Yeah, smashed all records.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And a big feature of that was you re-privatizing the economy, an economy that was bloated with federal employment under previous president. What's your message to Americans following this jobs report that smashed industry expectations? Is this just a sign that the best is yet to come?

TRUMP: Thank you. The Jobs Report is amazing in certain ways because we have tremendously fewer federal employees, way down. Now, I could have left them and added to what we did, and we would have had almost 100 percent employment. I could have gotten a great kick out of the fact that we're 100 percent employed.

But we got rid of tremendous numbers of federal workers, and they hated me for it.

[14:10:00]

Now they love me because most of them have gotten jobs in the private sector for two and three times more money than they were being paid by the federal government. We had some jobs where you had 10 workers for one job, ten workers for a job that one person should be doing. And we've gotten rid of a lot of those jobs. And by getting rid of them, these people became available to work in the private sector.

And as you know, the numbers are incredible. So the job numbers are incredible. The financial numbers are beyond belief. Again, they thought it couldn't be done in four years, and I did it in one year. And the numbers you're going to see is these -- I don't know if you noticed also construction numbers, the jobs for construction workers.

You know why? Because they're building plants all over the United States. That's why. And when these plants open in a year from now, some sooner, some a little bit later, but when these auto plants, A.I. plants, and thousands of other types of plants, when they open over the next period of a year, year-and-a-half, you're going to see numbers like we've never seen before in this country.

Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, Mr. President.

SANCHEZ: We've been listening to President Trump at the White House during an event in which his administration announced it would be dismantling the legal basis for EPA policy on climate change. Notably, the president there making news specifically when it comes to his Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, and revelations in the Epstein files that Lutnick had visited Jeffrey Epstein's island in the Caribbean. There he said that he did not speak to Lutnick about this, and he proclaimed again that he had never been to Epstein's island. Lastly, on a bit of news related to DHS funding, the president saying that he spoke to Senate Minority Leader, Chuck Schumer last week about it. Of course, DHS funding set to lapse tomorrow. Brianna?

SANCHEZ: Happening now. Time is just about out for Congress to strike a deal and avert a shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security. The deadline set for Friday, and Senators are leaving town for this President's Day recess. Senate Majority Leader, John Thune is now acknowledging that a shutdown is all but certain.

So let's bring in Democratic Senator, Peter Welch of Vermont to talk about this. Sir, thank you so much for being with us. Democrats are obviously demanding a list of changes to how ICE and CBP operate, and the White House has sent over some legislative language. What's in the White House's latest proposal, and what is not in it that you think needs to be?

SEN. PETER WELCH, (D-VT): Well, frankly, none of us really know. I guess a few of us know what is in the White House language, but it came over so late that there was never any ability to sit down and have a discussion.

You know, the bottom line for us is very simple. ICE should be required to have as its standards the same standards that apply to your police force and mine, on use of force, on body cameras, on training. Essentially, it's got a blank check, and what we've seen is they are acting in a way that is incredibly violent, very disruptive and interfering with local police force.

So our demand is really simple. The same standards that apply to police forces all around the country should apply to ICE. That's what my law enforcement people say should happen with ICE.

KEILAR: OK, but if it came over late and you guys need a chance to take a look at it, why leave town? Why not stick around and sort through the details and try to get somewhere before recess?

WELCH: Well, good point, and I'm here. I'd be glad to stay. But that's the decision of Senator Thune and his decision, and I think it was because of issues on his side. He's sending us home. But you've got a good point. We're ready. I'm ready to stay. I'm ready to talk. I'm ready to read and ready to negotiate.

KEILAR: So House Majority Leader, Steve Scalise said earlier this week, quote, "We funded ICE through the rest of President Trump's terms, so ICE is funded."

WELCH: Does holding up this DHS funding actually do anything to hamstring the ICE and CBP operations that Democrats object to?

WELCH: Well, very little, frankly. I think what has had some significant impact is the bravery of the people in Minneapolis who were out video recording and essentially, stepping between ICE and their violence towards some innocent citizens in that town and where we now see ICE is leaving Minneapolis, and that's overdue. But, there's two questions here.

One is, and it should be the easier one, what standards should apply to that as a law enforcement agency? And as I mentioned, I think they should be subject to the same standards as anyone else. But the second, and this is the most important issue, should the president, should homeland security, should Kristi Noem be implementing this policy of mass deportation?

Only 14 percent of the people who have been picked up and brought into custody have serious criminal records.

[14:15:00]

So what you're seeing is that this wholesale demand by Kristi Noem that they reach quotas, like 3,000 a day, is that people are being picked up who are completely innocent, including U.S. citizens. And the president has had success on the border. The border is secure. Only 9,000 interactions last month. And there's support for deporting criminals, but that's a targeted approach.

Where the president is absolutely wrong and Kristi Noem is absolutely wrong is this mass roundup where you're going to farms in Vermont, you're going to construction sites in Vermont and other places around the country, and where you're bringing in, as they did in Minneapolis, 3,000 armed and pretty trigger-happy ICE agents that is completely disrupting the city and interfering with local law enforcement.

So, I hope we get to the debate about the wisdom of a mass deportation policy. I oppose that. It's hurting everybody.

KEILAR: Senator, I want to read to you from some of the text messages that I've been getting from a Coast Guard spouse throughout the past few weeks. In one, she said, I so love that our families get to be political pawns. And another said, ugh, what can we do? Yesterday, she said, do we start worrying? And I think she speaks for a lot of Coastie families, for TSA, FEMA folks who are really worried that no DHS funding is going to mean they are going to miss a paycheck.

And that could have catastrophic effects for these families. What do you say to her and people like her?

WELCH: Well, what I say is that we should isolate out the ICE, Border Patrol funding. We should fund, and I'm prepared to vote yes to fund TSA, the Coast Guard, and FEMA. Those are really important to citizens all across the country. The debate should be about what standards apply to ICE and what's the legitimacy of a mass deportation policy.

But I do agree with her. She should get her paycheck. The Coast Guard should be continuing to protect us. FEMA should be issuing relief checks to folks like in Vermont who were hammered as a result of the recent floods.

KEILAR: But that's not the case. And as you're aware, when Democrats have been in power, there's also been an issue of whether you isolate people out, right?

WELCH: Right.

KEILAR: So this is a continuing thing. We see this time and again, and it's affecting these families. They get held up in the middle of this debate. But I do want to ask you, Democrats have rebuffed Trump administration demands that local law enforcement cooperate with federal immigration law enforcement. In your state, which shares a border, a very beautiful border with Canada, you do have local law enforcement that is working overtime, patrolling the border.

They're actually paid for by DHS funds. It's called Operation Stonegarden. It's something that's been in effect for years. Is that the kind of cooperation that you can support? And can you explain why?

WELCH: Well, absolutely. We have a lot of cooperation with our federal partners in Vermont. And the best law enforcement is when people are working together cooperatively.

You've got a really unique situation with ICE, where they don't have the training and where they've been flooding into areas without coordination of local law enforcement. You saw that in Minneapolis. But you also see that ICE has a unique mission that is very, very controversial in harming communities, and that is this mass deportation.

We have deportation of criminals. That's targeted. It doesn't require flooding the zone. It requires identifying who you're going after and getting them. So that's really the heart of this. If you have all these people armed and they're told, get 3,000 people a day and put them in jail so that we can deport them, and we'll figure out whether you picked up the right people or not, that's going to lead to chaos.

It's going to lead to tragedy. And that's the problem. We all saw those horrifying videos of two Minneapolis citizens essentially being executed. I mean, there was no excuse for that. So, I say to my colleagues on both sides, the Republican colleagues, we've got to deal with that.

KEILAR: Senator Peter Welch, thank you so much. I think we'll be seeing some more of you here in the coming days. There's going to be a lot of news on this.

WELCH: Thank you.

KEILAR: Still to come, a federal judge slamming Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, calling his attempts to punish Democratic Senator, Mark Kelly, unlawful retaliation. We'll have that and much more coming up on "CNN News Central."

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[14:24:15]

SANCHEZ: Senator Mark Kelly is responding to his big legal win today against the Pentagon. A federal judge has blocked Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth's attempts to punish the Arizona lawmaker for appearing in this video urging military members to refuse illegal orders. The judge calling the move retaliatory.

That video drew a furious response from President Trump when a post on social media called it seditious behavior punishable by death. In a statement, Kelly said, quote, "I know this might not be over yet because the president and his administration do not know how to admit when they're wrong." Just two days ago, a grand jury refused to criminally charge Kelly and the other lawmakers seen speaking in that video.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz is with us now. Katelyn, a lot of exclamation points in this decision by the judge.

[14:25:00]

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Indeed, Judge Leon, a Republican appointee who's pretty well respected, been on the bench for a long time. He's essentially saying here that the Trump administration and specifically the Pentagon and the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, they can't retaliate toward Mark Kelly, this Democratic Senator, for either what he is saying in that video or because of the fact that he is a retired member of the military.

So, what happened here to set this particular ruling up is that the military, Hegseth wrote a letter to Kelly, who's now in Congress and has been retired for almost 15 years, saying that he may be censured because he said in that video to troops and to the intelligence community that they could refuse illegal orders if they believed that the president or the military were giving them illegal orders.

What the censure was is that it would have placed a letter in Kelly's file. And then on top of that, they were going to review possibly demoting him at the time he had retired from service. And Kelly is fighting this. He doesn't want that in his record as a former service member. And then the judge says that what they're doing here is not just wrong for someone who is a retired member of the service. It's trampling First Amendment rights.

Judge Leon writes, "This court has all it needs to conclude that defendants have trampled on Senator Kelly's First Amendment freedoms and threatened the Constitutional liberties of millions of military retirees. To say the least, our retired veterans deserve more respect from their government and our Constitution demands they receive it!"

There's that punctuation mark.

SANCHEZ: One of several, yeah.

POLANTZ: One of several, many exclamation marks. Also a Bob Dylan quote at one point in this. But, Judge Leon here is saying, I am not going there, especially because Mark Kelly, as a member of Congress, as a Senator, he also has oversight abilities of the Pentagon.

SANCHEZ: Yeah. How does this relate to the news that the administration tried to prosecute those six Democrats in that video, but a grand jury ultimately didn't find cause for an indictment? POLANTZ: Yeah, it relates in that they're both about the Trump

administration's unhappiness with Kelly partaking in this video. They're both about that video. Now, there is a portion of this ruling where it says that you can't put the letter into a criminal proceeding and there is a threat of some sort of military justice.

But this is more just an argument that what Kelly said in that video seems to at least this judge to be largely protected speech. Clearly though, the people, members of Congress, including Kelly, are very, very likely to continue to fight against whatever the administration wants to do, including if they want to try again with an indictment.

SANCHEZ: Yes. Senator Kelly says he's prepared. So we'll see what happens.

POLANTZ: Yes.

SANCHEZ: Katelyn Polantz, thank you so much.

Still to come this afternoon, Border Czar, Tom Homan announcing the immigration crackdown in Minnesota has come to an end, claiming great success and declaring that any issues in the state have been fixed. A former head of ICE will join us next to discuss.

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