Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

U.S. Winter Storm Brings "Catastrophic" Ice, Snow, Extreme Cold; Officials Dispute Allegations around ICE Detention of Boy; Russia Strikes Ukraine ahead of Second Day of Peace Talks; Allies Outraged over Trump's Comments on NATO Troops; Some European Far-Right Parties Distance Themselves from Trump; How Climate Change May Be Fueling Severe Winter Storms; ICE Launches Operations in Maine; Danish Prime Minister Visits Greenland amid Uncertainty over Trump's "Deal"; Olympic Flame Two Weeks from Milan. Aired 5-6a ET

Aired January 24, 2026 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:00]

(MUSIC PLAYING)

KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Welcome to all of you watching us here in the United States, Canada and around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber. This is CNN NEWSROOM.

A potentially catastrophic winter storm is making its way across the U.S. The impacts that tens of millions of Americans can expect.

Conflicting accounts over a preschooler being taken away by ICE agents in Minnesota. We will have new reporting amid the Trump administration's controversial immigration crackdown.

And Russia launches deadly new strikes on Ukraine, even as the two sides have their first trilateral talks with the U.S. We'll have the latest in a live report.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from Atlanta this is CNN NEWSROOM with Kim Brunhuber.

BRUNHUBER: We begin this hour with a crippling winter storm starting to make its way across the U.S. It's already hitting parts of the South and Midwest right now. At least 16 states and Washington, D.C., have declared a state of emergency.

From Texas to New England, tens of millions of Americans are facing heavy snow, ice and extreme cold. Forecasters are warning of catastrophic impacts.

President Trump says he's been briefed on the potentially historic storm. He says his administration has been coordinating with local and state officials, adding that FEMA is fully prepared to respond.

All right. I want to go live now to Frank Pereira, a senior branch forecaster with the Weather Prediction Center. And he's joining me now from College Park, Maryland.

Thanks for being here with us. Appreciate it. Joining us on the phone. So we're hearing words like historic and catastrophic. I mean, put this in perspective for us.

How does this storm compare to others that you've seen?

FRANK PEREIRA, SENIOR BRANCH FORECASTER, WEATHER PREDICTION CENTER: Yes, certainly in terms of the geographic scope and the population impact, this is certainly one of the bigger storms that we've seen in quite some time, perhaps ever, at least in recent history, to impact the United States.

We're looking at -- the storm is expected to threaten nearly 180 million Americans with widespread heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain. And that's going to extend all the way from the Southern Rockies to New England for the next couple of days.

BRUNHUBER: So we're -- I mean, this storm is already hitting parts of the South and the Midwest. Give us a sense of what the next 24 to 48 hours are going to look like.

PEREIRA: Yes. Like you mentioned, it's already unfolding and we're seeing precipitation spreading out from the Rockies into the Southern Plains. And that's been ongoing overnight.

We're starting to see reports of accumulating snow and freezing rain impacting areas all the way from Kansas down into central Texas. Now as the day progresses, we're expecting precipitation to spread out into the Tennessee Valley later on this morning.

And by the time we get into this evening, we're expecting precipitation to spread out into the southeastern U.S. before working its way up to the North through the Mid-Atlantic, reaching the Mid- Atlantic states by Sunday, tomorrow morning, and then finally the Northeast by tomorrow afternoon.

And then the system should start to work its way offshore and out of the picture by the time we get into late, late Monday.

BRUNHUBER: I mean, ice seems to be the biggest threat in many places.

I mean, where are you most worried about prolonged power outages?

PEREIRA: Yes, we're looking at an area from the Southern Plains that would include parts of Texas eastward across parts of Louisiana, Arkansas, up into the Tennessee Valley.

For those areas, we're looking at a likelihood of some of those areas could see easily over a half-inch of accumulation, ice, perhaps even up to an inch of ice. And if that does occur, we're looking at long- term power outages due to extensive tree damage.

And in addition to the extremely dangerous and impassable road conditions that are likely to unfold and, you know, eventually the precipitation, like I mentioned, is going to spread further to the east.

We're also looking at some pretty good accumulations for freezing rain, ice, all the way from northern Georgia, up through parts of the Carolinas and eventually along the Mid-Atlantic Seaboard, southeastern Virginia, up through the Delmarva and into parts of New Jersey, New Jersey as well eventually.

BRUNHUBER: So I'm in Atlanta. I mean, we've seen here locally how badly things can go with even just a little bit of ice and snow.

[05:05:07]

You know, looking at that map, especially looking at the South, I mean, what makes this storm especially dangerous for places that just aren't built for this kind of weather?

PEREIRA: Yes. Like you mentioned, they're not -- they're not built for that kind of weather. We've got very cold, very cold air mass coming in. Not a lot to handle it in terms of, you know road treatments.

And so unfortunately, you know, with that amount of ice -- and we're also looking at a prolonged cold snap that's going to follow it. So any ice that does -- snow and ice that does accumulate is probably going to stick around for a while without, you know, manual means of removing it. So...

BRUNHUBER: Frank Pereira, appreciate that. Thanks so much.

Well, the threat of the massive storm is already impacting air travel. Sunday is now the worst day for flight cancellations in the past year. More than 6,000 flights have been canceled for Sunday and that's 600 more than the last hour.

The flight cancellation record was set hours earlier by Saturday's number, which is now more than 3,400. That's according to the flight tracking website FlightAware. CNN's Pete Muntean has more.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Things for travelers only get more maddening from here on out. And Saturday and Sunday stand to be the worst days for U.S. air travel in the last year. We're talking cancellations in the thousands.

Some major airline hubs in the path of the storm, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Memphis, Nashville, all planning on getting a major hit from the storm, including some places like Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, one of the busiest airports in the world, where airport officials insist that they are ready for the storm.

They have the plows ready to go and they have the deicing equipment ready to go. Here is what airlines are doing. They are offering passengers what's called travel waivers, meaning they can change or cancel their flights free of charge if they're on a long list of impacted cities.

Airlines are trying to move planes out of the path of the storm, along with their crews, and bringing in extra employees to the airports themselves to try and make it so that, when the storm passes, things can get back to normal more quickly.

But the big issue, the lingering issue is the cold. And here at Reagan National Airport outside Washington, D.C., the highs next week are anticipated to not crest above 30 Fahrenheit.

That will make it especially tough for the workers on the ramp here at the airport, meaning it will be a slow, tough go for airlines and travel from here on out -- Pete Muntean, CNN, Reagan National Airport.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: To Minnesota now, where sources tell CNN that the FBI agent originally working with state authorities to investigate the fatal shooting of Renee Good has resigned. The agent had opened a civil rights investigation but was ordered to reclassify it to assault on an officer.

The FBI had blocked Minnesota from participating in the investigation. The county attorney, who oversees Minneapolis, says the agent's resignation suggests the investigation may have been stopped for political reasons.

Well, anger over the shooting and the ongoing immigration crackdown moved thousands of people in the Twin Cities to brave subzero weather. They packed several blocks of downtown Minneapolis and turned up at the airport, where some were arrested.

They're also angry over a 5-year old boy who's been caught up in the deportation campaign. Liam Conejo Ramos and his father were taken by federal agents outside their Minneapolis area home. They're currently being held at a facility in Texas, more than 1,300 miles away.

Liam had just come home from preschool when his dad -- with his dad Tuesday afternoon when federal officers stopped them. There was a standoff while his mom waited just outside the door of their home. A board member with Liam's school witnessed the incident, says Liam was used as bait. Federal officials dispute that claim.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARCOS CHARLES, ACTING EXECUTIVE ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, ICE ENFORCEMENT AND REMOVAL OPERATIONS: Tragically, when we approached the door of his residence, the people inside refused to take him in and open the door. Let me say it again. They saw the young boy and they refused to open the door and take him back.

This is the human side of the job that my officers do. I know for a fact that they were heartbroken to see the child's own family leaving behind, fortunately, Conejo Arias eventually requested that his child stay with him. We do everything in our power not to separate families.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: The boy's case is fueling even more public scrutiny of ICE tactics in Minnesota. The reason for his separation from his mother is a major point of debate.

[05:10:00]

CNN's Sara Sidner has the latest from Minneapolis.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: There's a lot of just sheer anger at what they're seeing but also sorrow, looking at the picture of this little boy, 5 years old, with an ICE agent's hand on his little backpack and knowing what transpired.

Liam and his family are originally from Ecuador and, according to the attorney, they presented themselves to two border officers in Texas in December of 2024 to apply for asylum. And then they did so.

They went on the app, they went through all of the machinations that you have to go through, putting in your name, putting in your information. And they were here seeking asylum.

According to the attorney, what you have DHS saying is that they are still referring to Liam and his father as illegal aliens. They said they were going after his father and that his son happened to be with him.

And here's where things kind of diverge from what we're hearing from people who were there to witness this.

Several witnesses, including school officials, who happened to be going home from their duties at work, what you're hearing from DHS is something a little bit new, in which they're saying that Liam -- they say Liam's father said that, look, take him with me because, you know, I don't want him to be left here.

But you also have DHS saying at the same time that he was being abandoned. And that is why they had to take him into custody. That is being heavily disputed by those who are on the ground because, as we now know, Liam's mother was just a few feet away in the home of the driveway where they had nabbed his father and him.

And the mother was completely distraught, completely beside herself. She wanted her child. She wanted to have him with her. But she is pregnant and she was waiting for their 7th grader, who had not yet come home, terrified that she, too, would be picked up by ICE, leaving both children without their parents.

And you can imagine, with what has been happening with ICE on the ground here in Minneapolis, how afraid all immigrants are expressing that they are. They have zero trust in ICE saying to them we are not going to arrest you.

And that is why she did not open that door. No one, no one was planning on abandoning this child. That is a fact the family wants out there.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BRUNHUBER: Ukrainian cities take fire from Russia, just as Moscow

talks peace at the negotiating table. Still ahead, drones and missiles rain down on Ukraine as a new round of talks reportedly gets underway.

Plus, president Trump faces backlash over his latest comments on the Afghanistan war. We'll look at what he said that angered NATO allies. Those stories and more coming up. Stay with us

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:15:00]

(MUSIC PLAYING)

BRUNHUBER: Russian state media say that a second day of closed door peace talks with Ukraine and the U.S. has just resumed in Abu Dhabi. Tass reports that territory remains the key sticking point in the negotiations and a stubborn block throughout the conflict.

Now that's after Russia's war machine unleashed its biggest barrage of strikes this year. Ukraine says Russia launched close to 400 drones and missiles overnight, striking Kyiv and multiple other cities. The attacks reportedly left at least one person dead and 23 others wounded in Kyiv and Kharkiv.

Now that came after negotiators began the first trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi aimed at ending Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But Moscow hasn't sent its top negotiating team, which limits what can be discussed and accomplished. Nada Bashir is monitoring those developments and joins us now from London.

So Nada, before we get to those talks, bring us up to speed on what Ukraine is calling the biggest Russian airstrike so far this year.

NADA BASHIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. We've seen yet another overnight round of strikes carried out by the Russian armed forces, this time targeting the capital, Kyiv and also Ukraine's second largest city, Kharkiv.

At this stage (INAUDIBLE) according to officials in Kyiv, at least, one person has been killed and four others injured. As you mentioned, a barrage of missiles and drones meant that Ukraine's air defense systems were triggered.

But civilian infrastructure is said to have been damaged by falling debris, causing fires in some parts, as well as infrastructural damage. And in some parts of the city are now do not have access to water and electricity.

And, of course, Kharkiv also targeted in that overnight strike by the Russian armed forces. Among the areas impacted, a maternity hospital; officials there say at least 11 people were wounded in that attack. And, of course, we are still waiting to get further updates from officials there. But, of course, this comes as those peace talks are happening between

both Ukrainian and Russian delegations, mediated by a U.S. delegation in Abu Dhabi. Those talks began yesterday. They are continuing today. They are closed door talks.

But we did get a sense, of course, the progress at this stage, according to the Ukrainian president Zelenskyy. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): As for the substance of today's discussions, it is still too early to draw conclusions. We will see how the conversation develops tomorrow and what result it produces.

It is necessary that not only Ukraine has the desire to end this war and achieve full security but that a similar desire somehow emerges in Russia as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASHIR: Now it's understood that the key sticking point remains territory, namely the Donbas region. Russia wants Ukraine to cede control of areas not currently controlled by Russia in the Donbas region.

President Zelenskyy has previously indicated he may be willing to make concessions but it remains to be seen where they land today during those peace talks.

BRUNHUBER: We'll be watching. CNN's Nada Bashir, thank you so much.

Well, there's growing outrage from U.S. allies over Donald Trump's comments downplaying NATO's role in Afghanistan.

[05:20:03]

The U.S. president claimed on Thursday coalition troops stayed away from the front lines during the 20-year war. Here's how Trump put it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We've never needed them. We have never really asked anything of them, you know, they'll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan and they did. They stayed a little back, little off the front lines.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

While the U.S. had the most casualties of any NATO member, about 1,000 troops from other countries also died, including more than 450 from the United Kingdom. Trump's comments didn't sit well with the British prime minister. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) KEIR STARMER, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: I will never forget their courage, their bravery and the sacrifice that they made for their country. There are many also who were injured, some with life changing injuries and so I consider President Trump's remarks to be insulting and frankly appalling.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Now the White House is shrugging off the criticism. It says the U.S. has done more for NATO than any other country in the alliance.

Joining me now from Berlin is Nina Haase, the chief political correspondent at "Deutsche Welle."

Thank you so much for being here with us. Really appreciate it. So president Trump's comments about NATO allies staying back in Afghanistan, they really set people off, especially in the U.K., as I just mentioned.

I mean, how has that gone over there in Germany?

NINA HAASE, CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, "DEUTSCHE WELLE": Well, nobody here in Berlin has asked for an official apology by Donald Trump yet, like Keir Starmer has done in the U.K.

But we've heard a senior former German NATO commander weigh in on the debate, saying that Donald Trump's comments were completely exaggerated. And he said that, yes, there were some 150,000 deployments to Afghanistan in two decades by Germany.

And the German defense ministry has also said that they were always there with a very strong presence. They always played a very big role. They fulfilled their job. And 59 German soldiers were also killed in Afghanistan in those two decades that Germany was involved there, making that the bloodiest mission in the Bundeswehr history.

So these remarks by Donald Trump are really not going down very well at all with the allies. Also, considering that it was a different war, say, to the war between Russia and Ukraine, where you've got a set front line in Afghanistan, the situation was very, very different.

And people had to fight terrorists on the ground, never knowing where the front lines actually were.

BRUNHUBER: Yes. Great point. And this was all president Trump taking another shot at NATO allies. We saw Canadian prime minister Mark Carney saying at Davos that the rules-based global order is basically done. Many people in Germany starting to see it that way as well.

HAASE: Well, you know, Kim, a new poll just came out, just before I came on air, actually, here, that was done by Germany's biggest tabloid, "Bild" newspaper. And that was really striking to me that 61 percent of Germans now see Donald Trump as a potential threat to Germany.

This is Germany's largest tabloid. This is really polling, you know, across the nation. Only one in four say that they're not worried about Donald Trump.

And this is a country, Germany, that has very deep roots in transatlantic relations, a very firm belief still by many of the influential people, including politicians and journalists, et cetera, that deep transatlantic ties are necessary.

So it's very much a reaction to those remarks by Donald Trump, to that behavior, to those announcements that essentially the rule of the strongest will prevail. And this is not going down very well.

However, I do have to add that German politicians have been very cautious in their tone. They do agree with the analysis, say, by Canada's Mark Carney, that there is a rupture that we're seeing. But they are trying in their speeches to put the focus not so much on the rupture and instead on the solutions, how to move forward from now.

BRUNHUBER: I mean, those numbers are quite stark in terms of the number of Germans seeing the U.S. as a threat and Donald Trump as a threat, particularly. I mean, I'm wondering how universal that is, because, I mean, the far right party, the AfD, had been very friendly to Trump. They've been very supportive of each other.

But since he started talking that way about Greenland, for instance, is there any of that giving them second thoughts as well?

HAASE: You've mentioned the far right AfD party, which is, of course, here in the national parliament, the biggest opposition party.

[05:25:00]

And they have their eye on the chancellery. They are growing in numbers in the polls. But also there are important elections this year, where they are hoping to gain more votes also in the western part of the country. So far, they've been very popular in the former communist east.

But, of course, Donald Trump's policies and MAGA behavior is causing a very big dilemma for the AfD.

One, they don't really like having to focus too much on foreign policy. That is not something that sits very well with many Germans, especially given those numbers that I've just given you about how unpopular Donald Trump's rhetoric is with many, many Germans.

And two, also, this is something where they have to essentially make a decision, because they agree in principle that the end of liberalism is something they support. But then when it comes to the attacks on state sovereignty, that is something where they do have to say -- and they have said it out loud as well -- this is a no-go.

So the attack on Venezuela was not very popular with AfD leadership, either.

BRUNHUBER: You have a federal election coming up. We'll see how much Donald Trump is part of the conversation there. Nina Haase, thank you so much for speaking to us. Really appreciate it. A preliminary report into Sunday's deadly train accident in Spain is

offering some clues of -- into what went wrong. Now investigators say a fracture in the track's rail may have occurred just before the crash but authorities caution that the findings are provisional. The exact cause is still under investigation.

Now 45 people were killed when a train derailed and collided with another high-speed train traveling in the opposite direction.

All right. We're going to take a quick break. For our viewers here in North America, we'll have more news in a moment. For our international viewers, "INSIDE AFRICA" is next.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:30:00]

(MUSIC PLAYING)

BRUNHUBER (voice-over): Welcome back. I'm Kim Brunhuber. Let's check some of today's top stories.

Sources tell CNN that the FBI agent who was originally investigating the fatal ICE shooting of Renee Good has resigned. The agent had opened a civil rights investigation but was ordered to reclassify it to assault on an officer.

The county attorney, who oversees Minneapolis, says the resignation suggests the inquiry may have been stopped for political reasons.

Russia is taking aim at Ukraine, despite a new round of peace talks set to begin just hours from now. Ukraine says at least one person was killed and more than 20 others injured in overnight attacks on its two largest cities. The U.S., Russia and Ukraine are preparing to resume trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi.

Tens of millions of Americans are bracing for a massive winter storm stretching more than 2,000 miles across the U.S. Forecasters are warning of catastrophic impacts from heavy snow and ice that could lead to days without power in some areas.

Now the winter storm is already hitting parts of the South and Midwest with snow and sleet. The rain, snow and ice will be moving eastward from Texas to New England through the weekend.

Video out of Texas shows empty store shelves as people rushed to buy food and supplies. CNN's Ed Lavandera filed this report as the deep freeze began to set in Dallas.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Temperatures here in north Texas are starting to reach the freezing point and, once that happens, we will not see temperatures above freezing until early next week. And what that means for everybody here is a great deal of winter misery.

These are the conditions in Dallas, in the Dallas area now, where we've seen rainfall for most of the day. But now with that, those temperatures dropping below the freezing point, we're going to start seeing that mixture of ice and sleet falling. And that's going to wreak havoc just all across the region.

It's interesting where we are in this Arctic storm, as it's moved into West Texas and into Oklahoma. In Oklahoma, you're seeing and you're going to see a great deal of snowfall. But somewhere between where I am and the Texas-Oklahoma border, there is a line where that snow then just becomes sleet and ice.

And that is what is going to cause so many problems for so many people along this particular region in north Texas and into east Texas, as well as that blanket of ice has the potential of causing widespread power outages.

The governor of Texas and the officials at the electric grid here in the state say that the grid has enough power to handle the demand that is going to be coming over the next 72 hours. But that does not really kind of take into account the problems with ice on power lines and ice on trees.

That could knock out a great deal of power to hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, across the path of this storm. So that is going to be what officials are most concerned about.

We have seen crews throughout the region prepare and deploy ahead of time to try to get ahead of this and to try to maintain road conditions. But this is a storm that is now bearing down on a great part of the United States -- Ed Lavandera, CNN, Dallas, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: Climate change may play a big part in making severe winter storms like this more likely and more extreme. CNN's chief climate correspondent Bill Weir explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: It does seem unfair that, on an overheating planet, we still get bitterly cold ice and snow storms like this one here in the continental U.S.

But that is climate change, not necessarily a grand warming-up where days like this go away. But the scientists explain it's also part of a breaking polar vortex. This science is about 10 years old or so.

But the theory is, is that as the Arctic warms four times faster than the rest of planet Earth, the polar vortex is breaking down. This is this band of super high wind at the top of the Earth that typically, historically, in our lifetimes, has kept all that cold air up at the North Pole.

But as that ice and sea ice melts, affecting those wind patterns, they see it breaking down. And there's wobbles and fingers of cold air now reaching as far south as Texas and Florida, in some cases -- not in this storm but we've seen it in the past.

This is a symptom, some scientists believe, of a climate in breakdown, of the jet stream and the polar vortex being thrown off, affecting not only weather patterns here but as Greenland melts and dumps into the Atlantic Ocean, affecting ocean currents, which also affect weather patterns going forward into the future.

[05:35:07]

President Trump did not waste this opportunity to float some more climate denial on Truth Social. It's reminiscent to Oklahoma senator Jim Inhofe, who brought a snowball onto the floor of Congress to prove global warming wasn't happening.

But at the end of this storm, the end of this day, 11 of the hottest years on record are the last 11 years. We continue to see record high temperatures shattered year by year. Very hard to find new all-time low cold temperatures in this, the age of climate change, right now.

Now here in New York City, this is also the first major winter storm test for new mayor Zohran Mamdani. Historically, mayors who have failed to plow the streets vowed to be ready for these big blisters (ph) have suffered politically.

He is trying to get out in front of it, vowing to have 2,000 sanitation workers on 12-hour shifts, starting when the storm arrives; 700 salt spreading trucks and 7 million tons of salt, if they should need that much in this particular one.

They're talking a big game about preparation. But in the end, we shall see what the storm brings -- Bill Weir, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: The Trump administration's immigration crackdown has spread from Minnesota to Maine. Across the state, anti-ICE protesters have been making their opinions heard.

Maine's U.S. Senator Angus King says ICE is terrorizing residents. He called it a large-scale mass deportation effort and disputed federal officials' claims that agents are going after the so-called worst of the worst.

The Department of Homeland Security says more than 100 people have been arrested in Maine since the operation launched on Tuesday. It's led to chaotic scenes like this one. Have a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm a correctional officer. I work in Kimberly (ph). What's wrong?

BRUNHUBER (voice-over): Federal agents detained a corrections officer recruit in Portland on Wednesday, pulling him from the car, as you see there. The Trump administration claims the man crossed the southern border illegally in 2019.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: I want to go live now to South Portland, Maine. I'm joined by reporter for "The Portland Press Herald," Billy Kobin.

Thank you so much for being here with us. So over the past couple of weeks, we've been talking to reporters here on this program in cities where these crackdowns are happening. They told us about the sense of concern and fear on the ground there. I mean, you've been talking to people in Portland and Lewiston.

What's the mood like in those communities right now?

BILLY KOBIN, "THE PORTLAND PRESS HERALD": Yes. Thanks, Kim. I'd say it's definitely on edge. These two cities are the two most populous in Maine, which is a pretty rural state. So Portland has around 68,000 people. Lewiston closer to 35,000 people. So that's not necessarily a large city for each by any stretch of the imagination.

But for Maine, these are the two largest urban areas and the most progressive areas. So as you can imagine, there's been a lot of pushback, a lot of protests. People in these cities are not exactly thrilled with agents coming and detaining people, pulling them from cars.

It feels like yesterday, just driving around during the daytime, you get a lot of unease.

Maybe people who are wondering, hey, is that car supposed to be here?

You know, what's that tinted vehicle doing outside of a Latino owned business, for example?

And you've seen neighbors start honking horns and people blowing whistles on sidewalks if they suspect, of course, that agents are in the area and trying to detain somebody or are actually detaining somebody.

So I'd say anybody who lives in Lewiston, Portland right now would tell you that it's not exactly the most normal feeling. The past week and the week before have just really felt a bit uneasy.

BRUNHUBER: Yes, I can imagine. The Department of Homeland Security says it's targeting around 1,400 people with criminal records who are in the country illegally. But you've been reporting on cases that don't seem to fit that description.

What have you been finding?

KOBIN: Yes. I mean, really, it's our colleagues, my community reporters who work here and are obviously on the ground, usually each week covering, you know, all sorts of things, all sorts of meetings.

And they've been able to, of course, now hear from, you know, people in these communities around Portland, like Westbrook, South Portland, these kind of suburbs that are near the largest area.

And they've found cases of people who evidently don't have any criminal records, are in the country legally or are seeking asylum through the legal kind of route. And they've been detained. We had an 18-year old student at the University of Southern Maine, who is studying accounting. He's from the West African nation of Gabon.

[05:40:04]

Was in a minor car accident Tuesday and then was talking with, you know, an older gentleman who was in the accident with him about, you know, insurance info. And it seemed like everything was going fine. They were about to leave.

And then a few agents suddenly appeared and took the 18-year old student, who was trying to call his mom to describe what was happening.

You have another case of a mother of four kids who was detained. She doesn't have a criminal record.

You have a civil engineer who went to the University of Maine, is from Colombia, has been working here in Portland on a visa. His colleagues say he's done nothing wrong. But he was pulled from his car in downtown Portland earlier this week as well.

So those are the cases that are obviously starting to get a bit more attention, given some of them have been recorded or witnessed by bystanders.

And that's why local officials are asking, OK, are these the people that we really want as part of this operation.

BRUNHUBER: Some of those images that you talk about, I mean, we've been hearing from Republicans nationally, saying essentially that these optics of arrests and so on are kind of undercutting their message.

Are local Republicans in Maine expressing similar concerns?

KOBIN: I would say it's not been apparent yet, like I've heard earlier in the week, from a few that seemed to support, obviously, what was happening. And then you have the one of the top Republicans in the Maine legislature, so at the state level, use a radio address to basically call on Democrats to tone down the rhetoric.

And she called for a meeting with Governor Janet Mills to basically talk through, hey, how can we make sure everybody is, you know, remaining peaceful here?

And so that wasn't exactly a message of, we're worried about these tactics or some of these videos or things that we're seeing, you know, on the streets in terms of people who have no records getting detained.

It was more of a -- kind of a call to almost blame Democrats for the rhetoric that has led people to, you know, want to get out and document agents and yell at them at times. So we'll see. Obviously, as long as this keeps going on, the mood will remain really tense.

We don't know latest numbers on arrests. You said 100, obviously, earlier this week but we don't know if we're closer to 200 now and we don't know if we need to get to 1,400 or so people before agents will leave Portland, will leave Lewiston, will leave these other parts of Maine. So there's a lot of uncertainty there.

BRUNHUBER: Yes, lots of unanswered questions. I really appreciate you keeping the -- your looking at the pulse of what's going on there in the community. Billy Kobin in South Portland, Maine, thank you so much.

KOBIN: Thank you. Kim.

BRUNHUBER: Denmark's prime minister is demonstrating her country's unity as questions linger over Donald Trump's deal on the future of Greenland. We'll have that story coming up. Stay with us.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:45:00]

(MUSIC PLAYING)

BRUNHUBER: Denmark's prime minister is projecting national unity with Greenland after U.S. president Donald Trump backed away from his threat to potentially use force to take the island.

The prime minister went to Greenland on Friday and appeared with her Greenlandic counterpart. Earlier this week, Trump announced what he called a framework deal on Greenland's future. But many of its details are still under wraps and Denmark's defense ministry says NATO military drills in Greenland will continue.

They were started after Trump threatened to annex the island. Want to go to CNN's Nic Robertson, who is standing by in Greenland's capital, Nuuk.

So Nic, to start, I mean, are we learning any more about that so- called deal?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: We don't really have the details of it. What we do have is a very, very, I would say broad view. And that is the Danish prime minister is saying president Trump's desires to have bases for his Golden Dome missiles, that's possible.

NATO's secretary general is talking about Denmark's big and increasing commitment to Arctic security and talking about having a longer, bigger, ongoing NATO commitment for Arctic security.

I think all of these things, particularly the NATO component of what countries will commit, et cetera, really, that is at the beginning of a discussion. And clearly, with the United States and Denmark over what the U.S. wants in Greenland still is in the essence at its beginning.

We're told to expect high level talks in a couple of weeks. But the foundation stone of it, from the Danish point of view, is very simply any conversation has to respect the sovereignty of Greenland, the territorial integrity and the self-determination of the people.

And the people are self-determining that they don't want to be part of the United States and the United States getting Greenland is not on the table but much else is. Other than that, we don't have a lot more.

It was striking yesterday, by the way, when Mette Frederiksen, the Danish prime minister, was walking the streets here with Jens-Frederik Nielsen, the Greenland prime minister. Some of the places they went to, they went to a meat market and they went to a children's kindergarten.

And when you listen to politicians here, one of the things they will tell you about the tensions that president Trump has injected into the conversations over the future, Greenland, is really the fear that it's put in the minds of children.

So I think there was something here not just about unity but really showing, trying to steady people's nerves here a little bit. And the prime minister saying, look, a very serious situation. The Danish prime minister saying a very serious situation. But now on a political diplomatic track. Details TBD.

BRUNHUBER: Yes. And Nic, speaking of tensions between Donald Trump and NATO allies, I'm also curious what reaction you're seeing about Trump's comments about NATO allies in Afghanistan. He's saying they weren't needed and accusing them of hanging back.

ROBERTSON: Yes. Well, we've heard a lot from countries have contributed -- of NATO contributing nations.

I mean, not least the British prime minister, who has what the British would regard as a special relationship with the United States, really, for the first time, strongly pushing back, insulting is the language he -- is how he described president Trump's comments.

Prince Harry, who served in Afghanistan, also pushing back. I've talked before, President Trump made those comments here already about the tensions president Trump has injected into the NATO alliance and the commitment of other nations.

[05:50:00]

And one of the commanders here I spoke to, really it was -- it didn't sit well with him. When I asked him about it, he really paused before, you know, he said, frankly, you know, disconcerting, upsetting. He obviously wanted to stay out of the politics of it.

But I think when you look at what president Trump has said about Afghanistan, even that belies the reality of the ground. He talks about those NATO troops not being near the front lines.

I spent many, many occasions with American troops, British troops, Lithuanian troops in Chaghcharan way up in the north of Afghanistan, Italian troops based out in the west in Herat and, you know, other troops.

The Germans, for example, were based in Taloqan up toward the north. There were troops all over the place. But the tough reality on the ground in Afghanistan at that time was that the Taliban were among the people. And they would hide IEDs in towns.

So troops were de facto on the front line all the time, whether they were in little military camps as we saw them, you know, nothing more than a mud wall around them and mortars coming in at them overnight when they're sleeping in their little cots with nothing much to protect them or driving through their towns.

I'm thinking back to a time in Afghanistan in 2007, when I was there with British troops in their in their Viking (ph) vehicles, driving across the desert terrain there. They thought at the beginning those vehicles were impenetrable to IEDs. It turned out they weren't. And soldiers died and were injured and maimed in those vehicles.

So the front lines really doesn't get to the point of the fight in Afghanistan and the commitment and the suffering of all those NATO troops. And that's really why it sits so badly with so many NATO contributing soldiers and leaders.

BRUNHUBER: Yes. Appreciate that perspective. Nic Robertson, thank you so much.

We'll be right back here on CNN NEWSROOM. Stay with us.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:55:00]

(MUSIC PLAYING)

BRUNHUBER: Runners carried the Olympic flame through several historic towns in northern Italy yesterday on its way to the Winter Games opening ceremony.

The torch relay went to Aquileia, one of the main centers of the ancient Roman Empire, before arriving in Trieste with the help of 29 torchbearers. The flame is now just two weeks away from reaching its final destination in Milan.

Police in New York rushed to the scene of a bank robbery in progress, only to find that their suspect wasn't exactly the hardened criminal they were expecting. Have a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BRUNHUBER (voice-over): Well, body cam footage shows officers wrangling the wayward buck who found himself trapped in the bank after smashing in through a window -- just incredible -- setting off the bank's alarm system.

As you can hear police say, the deer resisted arrest but was eventually lassoed and guided back outside, where he was released, thankfully without any charges.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: All right, that wraps this hour of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Kim Brunhuber. "CNN THIS MORNING" is next after a quick break.