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Interview with Rep. Mark Alford (R-MO): DHS in Partial Government Shutdown after Funding Talks Stall; DHS: 2 ICE Agents Made Untruthful Statements Under Oath; Petition Calls for New Look at Ultra-Processed Foods. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired February 16, 2026 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: The Department of Homeland Security is ensnared in a partial government shutdown as lawmakers remain locked in a bitter standoff over immigration enforcement policies. Democrats say they will not budge without seeing several reforms. Things like restricting roving patrols, tightening parameters on warrants, requiring agents to wear body cameras and to also remove their masks.

Republicans have bucked on these demands saying that they go too far and ignore agent safety. Let's get some perspective with Republican Congressman Mark Alford of Missouri. Congressman, thank you so much for being with us.

We last heard from Senate Majority Leader John Thune indicating the White House is giving more and more ground on some of these key issues. Could you share any insight on what that means, which demands the administration may have moved on?

REP. MARK ALFORD (R-MO): Well, I'm not in direct communication with the White House. I know they are actively negotiating this with the Senate side. But look, I think this is the stupidest shutdown in U.S. history. We have already provided money in the bill that the appropriators passed, and the House passed and sent to the Senate $20 million for body cameras. We agree that they should have body cameras. I think it's really going to tell the truth, the facts of what is going on in places like Minneapolis and other places.

Look, when it comes to warrants, I know they want judicial warrants. We have administrative warrants. These criminal illegal aliens have had due process.

Final orders of deportation have been set by judges, and they need to go back to their home countries. As far as removing masks, we are not going to jeopardize the safety of federal officers. There's a reason they're wearing masks to protect their identity so they're not doxed, their families aren't stalked, and they can go home safely at night.

SANCHEZ: I do wonder specifically on the issue of warrants. Part of the concern, and to illustrate for our folks at home, a judicial warrant is something that is granted by a judge. Probable cause has to be shown. An administrative warrant is essentially something that an official, an ICE official, or a federal agent signs off on in order for these federal officers that are sent to different parts of the country to act on essentially the apprehension of somebody who is believed to be in the country illegally.

[14:35:00]

I do wonder, though, to get your perspective on this, the accusation, repeated accusations, that federal agents have been dishonest about multiple incidents, including incidents that have seen American citizens shot.

Do you not have any apprehension about allowing ICE to go ahead and enter someone's home or to try to apprehend them based purely on someone signing off on a warrant that probable cause hasn't been shown for? There have been allegations of abuse of these warrants.

ALFORD: Firstly, I'd like to clarify what you just said, possibly correct. To my knowledge, no federal officer has lied about any incident involving shooting an American citizen. The story that's coming out now from three days ago is that two officers are on administrative leave for allegedly lying about a Venezuelan citizen here in this country, supposedly illegally.

Look, these illegal aliens need to go, especially the criminal illegal aliens. If you tie a judicial warrant to what ICE is doing, it will never happen. What is happening now, though, is Tom Homan has moved in.

They've sent in a different quarterback, taking Kristi Noem out. He's in. He's made a deal with these sanctuary cities and municipalities to get cooperation.

And now that there's cooperation, there's no longer a need for as many ICE agents in there. But to date, the Trump administration has removed more than 675,000 illegal aliens and more than two million illegal aliens have self-deported. I think we're on the right track.

SANCHEZ: Congressman, maybe the language was somewhat imprecise, and I should have been more broad. There's immense distrust in this country over the work of these federal agents because you had administration officials suggesting that Alex Pretti was brandishing a weapon and threatening law enforcement. And we all saw with our own eyes that that wasn't the case.

So forgive me if that Venezuelan citizen didn't happen to be an American citizen who was shot, but there's still a trust problem with these federal agents, especially those that apparently ICE is acknowledging likely were dishonest under oath. So I go back to my question. Are you willing to just blindly trust the work of these agents without further efforts to oversee what they're doing?

Are you willing to trust the ICE officer that just signs off on a warrant without having actual probable cause in place? ALFORD: Look, I trust what Tom Homan, DHS, Kristi Noem, and President Trump is doing to deport the illegal aliens that President Biden let into our great nation, some 12 to 15 million. We have got to right the ship on this. Action has to be taken.

It's being taken in other places. Memphis, Tennessee, there are no problems there with the deportation efforts. In Texas, no problems because the governments are cooperating with the federal authorities as it should be.

And until we can have cooperation with all, there is going to be tension, especially if local officers are not backing federal officers and providing for their safety. Had that happened in Minnesota early on, we would not have two U.S. citizens dead.

SANCHEZ: We have to move on to something else, Congressman. I do want to ask you about this effort by DOJ to get voters' drivers license numbers and partial Social Security numbers. Missouri's Republican Secretary of State said that he will not do it without a court order citing privacy laws.

ALFORD: Right.

SANCHEZ: There is widespread concern about why the federal government is even seeking this information. Apparently, they've not provided clarity to folks like Missouri's Secretary of State. Do you share his concerns?

ALFORD: I do. I talked to Secretary Denny Hoskins, a good friend of mine, just a few minutes ago. You know, he has cleaned up the voter rolls here in Missouri.

In just this last year, removed 200,000 people from the rolls who weren't supposed to be there. Fifty thousand dead people were still on our rolls. We have voter ID in the state of Missouri.

We don't do sending out mail-in ballots just randomly, like some states do, to people without them requesting them and for a valid reason. And we're not doing the drop boxes here, which have led to a lot of mistrust. Talking about lack of trust, that's something, I think that led to a lot of mistrust during the 2020 election.

SANCHEZ: Well, a lot of that mistrust was sown by the president, who made repeated false claims about there being widespread election fraud when there was none. Congressman Mark Alford, we have to leave the conversation there. We do appreciate your time.

ALFORD: Thank you, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Of course -- Fredricka.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN HOST: All right, a continuation of some of that conversation.

[14:40:00] Two federal agents are on administrative leave after ICE said they made untruthful statements while under oath. Initially, the agents said they were assaulted with a broom or a shovel during an enforcement operation in Minnesota last month. The alleged assault resulted in a Venezuelan immigrant being shot in the leg, but a review of video evidence contradicts what the agents actually said happened.

CNN correspondent Priscilla Alvarez is with me now. So what more can you tell us about this?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is an incident that occurred in Minnesota in January. It was right after the shooting of Renee Good and right prior to the shooting of Alex Pretti. So tensions were running high.

And in that moment, the Department of Homeland Security described an immigration enforcement action that went wrong. Essentially, the migrants fleeing, there being an assault of the federal agents, and a federal agent opening fire and shooting one of those migrants in the leg. However, since then, as you mentioned, there has been video reviewed, eyewitnesses that have been interviewed, and they have not been able to back up the accounts of the agents.

And the two Venezuelan men here denied assaulting these agents with a broom or a shovel, as had been said by officials at the time. Now, what we saw late last week was that the Justice Department filed a motion to dismiss the charges against these men. The judge ultimately did dismiss them.

But then we got a statement from the acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement directors, the boss of these agents, that also called into question everything that had transpired here. He said, and I'm going to quote here, quote, "Both officers have been immediately placed on administrative leave pending the completion of a thorough internal investigation. Lying under oath is a serious federal offense.

The U.S. Attorney's Office is actively investigating these false statements. Upon conclusion of the investigation, the officers may face termination of employment, as well as potential criminal prosecution."

So now this has become a situation where there has been a criminal probe that has opened up into these agents and whether they provided false testimony about what exactly had transpired there.

Now, the White House Boarder Czar, Tom Homan, who was dispatched to Minnesota by the president himself, also weighed in on this with our Jake Tapper yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM HOMAN, BORDER CZAR: First thing I said I was going to do, and I did, was bring more internal affairs officers to Minnesota to investigate the allegations. Allegations were made that needed to be investigated. And again, I won't discuss the investigations.

We'll let the internal affairs and the bureau investigate these allegations, and that's the right thing to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALVAREZ: Now, there has been an acknowledgement by senior officials that there were issues on the ground in Minnesota. It's what led to Tom Homan being dispatched there. There, he said that the footprint of internal affairs to look into any misconduct has grown in Minnesota.

But certainly all of this coming at a time where there has been public distrust in the Department of Homeland Security amid conflicting accounts over various incidents, including these high-profile shootings.

WHITFIELD: These are potentially serious credibility issues. Priscilla Alvarez, thank you so much.

All right, still to come, RFK Jr. says the government will respond to a public call to overhaul regulation of ultra-processed foods. One of the top targets could be an ingredient that's in many of the things that Americans eat almost every day.

[14:45:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: The Trump administration is escalating its push to make ingredients in American food healthier. In an interview with CBS's 60 Minutes, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the FDA will respond to a citizen's petition seeking greater oversight of ultra-processed food.

WHITFIELD: The petition is being led by former FDA chief David Kessler, who argues that the agency has the authority to revoke generally recognized as safe status for certain additives. Losing that label could force makers of ultra-processed foods to reformulate products or prove their ingredients are safe.

Dietitian Keri Glassman is joining us right now. Keri, glad you could be with us. So what do we know about the overall health impact of ultra-processed foods?

KERI GLASSMAN, REGISTERED DIETITIAN: Well, ultra-processed foods, remember, are industrial formulated. They are highly -- made with highly refined ingredients and unhealthy additives. Ingredients that you wouldn't find in the average kitchen.

Things like emulsifiers and hydrogenated fats and artificial sweeteners and lots of fat and sugar. And one thing that I think all health professionals can agree upon is that ultra-processed foods are something that Americans need to consume less of. They are linked to many adverse health outcomes.

SANCHEZ: What alternatives are there?

GLASSMAN: Real whole foods, right? And it's not to say that people can't have any processed foods. I mean, we don't all live on farms. We're not all picking apples from trees. We have to eat a certain amount of packaged and processed foods. But minimally processed foods is really the direction we want to go.

Minimally processed and whole real foods. So even making some changes from highly packaged types of foods to things like even frozen foods and canned foods can be a great step for many people.

WHITFIELD: But aren't a lot of those things in there for, say, shelf life? You mentioned packaged foods. They can't really survive without some of those additives, can they?

GLASSMAN: Well, there are certainly ways to make foods more shelf stable with certain additives that are still healthier for you. There are many of them out there. Ascorbic acid, which is a vitamin C.

So there are many ways to do that. And of course, that's what I'm saying is that you can have a certain amount of packaged foods, but it's these minimally processed packaged foods. There are many ways to do that.

And of course, that's what I'm saying is that you can have a certain amount of packaged foods, but it's these minimally processed packaged foods. The ultra packaged processed foods really don't resemble food. They're not really food.

When you look at the ingredients, they're made with things that truly, again, they don't even look like food. They don't taste like what food was meant to be. And because of all of that processing, our body processes those foods and metabolizes them differently and not how our biology was meant to work.

Not only do highly packaged processed foods have all of these unhealthy added ingredients, it's also what they're missing. They're missing things like fiber and phytonutrients that help prevent disease. So there's many things to consider here.

And remember, highly packaged processed foods, manufacturers are creating them in a way to make them convenient, to make them shelf stable, and to make them highly palatable and addictive. So we want to go back and have more. And we know that they are linked to things like obesity, type 2 diabetes, cancers, cardiometabolic disease, and overall mortality.

So we need to reduce the consumption. And right now, Americans are eating about 50 percent of their caloric intake from ultra packaged processed foods. So we need to eat more whole real foods.

SANCHEZ: What would be a good rule of thumb to avoid them without having to just delve deep into the weeds of what is ultra processed and what is not? Is it safe to say that if you can't pronounce what's on the ingredient list, it's probably ultra processed?

GLASSMAN: Yes, so that's a kind of a go to rule of thumb that I would say is 90 percent correct, because if it looks like a science experiment, perhaps stay away from it. However, there are some ingredients in there like ascorbic acid, I just mentioned that maybe someone can't pronounce and is in essence, just vitamin C. So you want to Yes, it's a rule of thumb, but not always perfect.

Other things is, again, just try to reduce the amount of packaged foods overall as few ingredients as possible. And if their names are things that you don't understand what they are, that's also just another rule of thumb. If there's seven ingredients, but they all are real foods mixed together in one package food, you know that that's still made with whole real foods.

Also try to prepare food ahead of time, that when you prepare food, you don't rely on these packaged foods as much as much. And like I mentioned, going for maybe some frozen foods, if you need that convenience, that's a good step.

Food and eating really important.

WHITFIELD: It's getting way too complicated.

SANCHEZ: In the afternoon --

WHITFIELD: This is the stuff that I really, really like. All right, Keri Glassman, thank you so much. Not the ultra processed part but just eating.

I really like that. Now this is getting really hard. All right, now to some of the other headlines that we're watching this hour.

Clashes breaking out Sunday in the Israeli city of Bnei Brak. Video showing religious protesters yelling at police as they clash with Israeli security forces. And police say protests erupted after two soldiers tried to conduct welfare related activities.

Twenty eight people were arrested and released, according to their attorney. The ultra-Orthodox community has been holding regular protests against efforts to draft their members into the Israeli military.

SANCHEZ: Also, after 150 years, one of Lake Michigan's most sought after missing ships has been found. Luxury steamer Lac La Belle was lost in a storm in 1872. Shipwreck hunter Paul Ehorn has been looking for the ship for more than 60 years.

He says the steamer's exterior upper cabins are gone, but the hull looks intact and the oak interiors are still in good shape.

And check this out. A bunch of humanoid robots teaming up with young kung fu fighters for a synchronized performance in Beijing. The robots using swords and nunchaku flipping across the stage. This is all to celebrate the beginning of the Chinese New Year. Hopefully not the end of humanity as we know it.

We all know how this movie ends.

WHITFIELD: I know. And oh, isn't it? It's the year of the Fire Horse, by the way, isn't it? Or at least the horse in simplistic terms, but the Fire Horse.

SANCHEZ: Whoa.

WHITFIELD: So this maybe fits right in because it's all about intensity and energy.

SANCHEZ: A little bit scary too.

WHITFIELD: Yes, it's a lot scary.

SANCHEZ: Still to come, a new round of flooding rain in Southern California, forcing residents to evacuate. We'll talk about where they're being told to go and what the forecast looks like moving forward.

[14:55:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: A series of storms is impacting the West Coast with a risk of flash flooding, debris flow and strong winds in California. As a result, parts of Los Angeles County are under evacuation warnings. Let's go to CNN's Allison Chinchar at the CNN Weather Center. So Allison, when is the worst of this supposed to hit California?

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Right. So a lot of it is actually occurring right now. You can see from the radar, you've got very heavy rain across portions of Central and even Southern California.

We have multiple flash flood warnings across Southern California, including this one right here across L.A. proper that has a considerable tag, again, talking about the volume of water that has already started to fall across these areas. Law enforcement already reporting flooding in and around some of the areas and they are saying -- the weather service is saying that mud slides and rockslides are expected due to the heavy rain that is already moving through and is expected to continue over the next several hours. We also have a severe thunderstorm warning in effect right around Los Angeles greater area due to some of the very gusty winds that are taking place.

Flooding is going to be a concern for the remainder of the day today, especially in the yellow shaded area ...

END