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Minnesotans Hold Memorial for Alex Pretti at Shooting Site; Videos Contradict DHS Account of Fatal Minneapolis Shooting; Private Jet with 8 People on Board Crashes in Maine; Massive U.S. Winter Storm Brings Ice, Snow, Bitter Cold; New York Battling Freezing Temps Amid Winter Storm; Key Questions Unanswered in Alex Prett Shooting; Senate Dems Threaten Government Shutdown Over DHS Funding; Winter Storm Blankets U.S. Capital with Snow & Sleet. Aired 12-1a ET

Aired January 26, 2026 - 00:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

[00:02:36]

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN ANCHOR: And we want to welcome all of our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. I'm Polo Sandoval, live in New York. And we continue to stay on top of two massive breaking news stories at this hour.

Hundreds of thousands of people across the U.S., they are currently in the dark. And this as a winter storm brings some absolutely bitter- cold temperatures and dangerous icy conditions to tens of millions of people across the country.

We're going to have much more on the impacts of this storm throughout the hour.

But first, crowds of anti-ICE protesters, they are braving some of those frigid temperatures in Minneapolis. They're marching through the city with signs reading, "It was Murder" and "Stop Killing our Neighbor."

They are outraged by Alex Pretti's death. And by the way, the Trump administration is labeling him as a domestic terrorist.

The Department of Homeland Security claims that federal agents fired out of self-defense. They allege, without providing any sort of evidence, that Pretti, quote, "brandished a firearm and attacked officers."

Minneapolis officials say that Pretti was a registered and lawful gun owner and, crucially, that his death was captured on cell phone video by several witnesses, and at no point in any of the videos that have been reviewed by CNN, is Pretti seen wielding a firearm.

This next video shows at least one of the angles of the deadly encounter from Saturday morning. And a warning" the video is graphic. It is disturbing, but certainly necessary to give you a better idea of what happened.

You see Pretti there in a baseball hat. He's moving between an agent and a woman that federal officers had shoved into the ground. Pretti is sprayed with a chemical irritant and then dragged down.

You see, that scuffle continues there as multiple federal agents are on top of Pretti. And then ultimately, shots are fired at least ten times.

Minnesota's governor says that Pretti's killing and the federal government, quote, "sullying his name" is an inflection point in history.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. TIM WALZ (D-MN): I've got a question for all of you. What side do you want to be on? The side of an all-powerful federal government that can kill, injure, menace, and kidnap its citizens off the streets?

Or on the side of a nurse at the V.A. Hospital, who died bearing witness to such government?

We have got children in Minnesota hiding in their houses, afraid to go outside. Many of us grew up reading that story of Anne Frank. Somebody's going to write that children's story about Minnesota. And there's one person who can end this now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[00:05:07]

SANDOVAL: Let's begin our coverage with CNN's Shimon Prokupecz, who shows us how Minnesotans are paying tribute to Pretti.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: People continued to gather here through the night, despite the really frigid temperatures. A lot of candles being lit and flowers, people leaving notes in remembrance of Alex Pretti.

Many of the people who have been coming here to this makeshift memorial -- this is the site where it all happened. This is where he was killed.

And the community members have been gathering here because they want to have some unity. They want to get together and talk about what happened and how unhappy, obviously, they are about what's been happening here, the fear that they face.

Of course, there's a lot of questions that are -- still remain and need to be answered by federal officials as to exactly what happened here.

You have a local law enforcement, which is completely unhappy with the federal authorities. The police chief here in Minneapolis speaking out, saying that some of what they're doing, their tactics, some of the other things that they're doing are unconstitutional.

And many of the people here are just tired, and they want to see this come to an end.

And in the days ahead, there's going to be legal battles and other, certainly, political battles. Everyone here right now is saying that the federal authorities need to go, and things truly just need to de- escalate and calm down.

People here just want to move on and get going with their lives and get back to the way things were.

Shimon Prokupecz, CNN, Minneapolis.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL: And the Department of Homeland Security, it is pushing back against a lawsuit that was filed by Minnesota authorities.

It seeks to prevent possible tampering or destruction of evidence in the Alex Pretti shooting investigation. Now, a warning: the video that we're going to show you is also disturbing. It shows the moments leading up to Saturday's shooting.

And the lawsuit claims federal authorities, quote, "took from the scene of the shooting," referring to evidence, preventing state authorities from inspecting it.

A DHS official dismissing those claims, calling them a ridiculous attempt to divide the American people. The official also doubling down on the Trump administration's position that the victim, Alex Pretti, himself, attacked law enforcement officers.

Again, this despite not being what we see in the -- in the minutes of video that have already been widely circulated.

Let's go now to civil rights attorney Areva Martin, who joins us live from Los Angeles. Areva, it's wonderful to see you again. Thank you so much for joining us.

AREVA MARTIN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Hi, Polo.

SANDOVAL: Areva, you have no doubt seen multiple angles out there already of -- of Saturday's shooting. After reviewing all of it, do you see any justification what so -- whatsoever to -- to justify the actions of Border Patrol agents that -- that left Mr. Pretti dead?

MARTIN: Absolutely not. What we see from the various videos that have been circulated is a man who was exercising his First Amendment rights to protest; who was getting in between an ICE officer and another protester; who was tackled to the ground by several ICE officers.

He did have a gun. We have been told he had a license to carry that gun, that that gun was removed from his body, from his person as he was pinned to the ground, and that he was shot after the gun was removed while he was pinned to the ground. So, there's nothing in the videos, nothing from any of the witnesses'

statements that would justify what appears to be just a cold-blooded murder of this 37-year-old U.S. citizen who is, or was, as we were told, a registered nurse working for the Veterans Administration hospital.

This is an absolute tragedy. Learning that his parents learned about his -- his killing, because they received a phone call from reporters.

We're watching this smear campaign. This inflammatory language by the Trump administration, calling him a domestic terrorist, saying that he had the intention to massacre ICE agents, all of which is completely contradicted by what we can see with our very eyes and hear from the video that has been released.

SANDOVAL: Yes. The second U.S. citizen killed by ICE agents this month alone.

Areva, let's turn to Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino. And what he told my colleague Dana Bash on Sunday morning. I want you to listen to this exchange.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: You keep saying that he injected himself into the crime scene. He was a guy on a street filming a -- an operation. He wasn't -- he was far away. He wasn't on the crime scene.

And what I want you to see, again, is that law enforcement appears, by the video we have, to be approaching him and the person who is next to him, not the other way around.

And so, what I want to know is what evidence do you have that he went after law enforcement?

[00:10:01]

GREG BOVINO, BORDER PATROL COMMANDER-AT-LARGE: Sure. The fact that he was standing in the middle of the road. There was interaction between him, the bystanders, and law enforcement.

And again, follow directions of law enforcement. He doesn't need to be in the middle of a crime scene.

Dana, I don't think you would want to be in the middle of a crime scene, or you would want civilians in the middle of a crime scene injecting themselves into something that is none of their business at all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: So, two things off of that. One, I mean, the residents of Minneapolis are certainly making it their business, many of them taking issue with the actions of ICE agents.

But separate from that and just focusing on -- on the legalities here, when he's saying that he put himself in the middle of a crime scene, just tapping into your expertise, Areva, what constitutes a crime scene? If there was no obvious yellow tape, no sort of barricades? I mean, Pretti was also not the only civilian there.

MARTIN: Let's be clear. He's conflating a lot of concepts here in a lot of word salad.

First of all, the fact that he's claiming it wasn't his business. He had a First Amendment right to be on that street. It's a public street. We all have First Amendment rights to go into the public to protest, be in the middle of the road.

So, he calls it the middle of the road, but yet, he calls it a crime scene. And as you stated, Polo, there's no evidence that this was a crime scene. There's no yellow tape. There are no barricades. There are no indications to anyone that this is a crime scene.

You can't just call something a crime scene, simply because you deem it so. What evidence is there of it being a crime scene? And what notice did they give to the public that this was a crime scene?

So, I'm not sure, other than, again, attempts to smear Mr. Pretti, attempts to justify what is not justifiable by what we saw in that videotape: a rush to judgment.

And if you listen to the rest of that interview, he admonishes the anchor about not allowing the investigation to take place. Yet, we've seen the administration already say that he was -- he being Mr. Pretti -- was trying to massacre ICE agents; that he was a domestic terrorist; that he was, as you just -- as we just heard him say, in the middle of a crime scene.

So, they want us to reserve judgment until there's an investigation when it's to their benefit. But when they want to smear a victim like Mr. Pretti, then they jump to conclusions, and there's no need for an investigation.

So, you can't have it both ways. The hypocrisy is just nauseating.

SANDOVAL: Yes. The reality is that there was no shortage of speculation a mere hours after the shooting happened, when it comes to what we heard from the White House.

And then, in the last hour or two, Areva, I was listening to a conversation that my colleague Pam Brown had with Pete Sessions, with Representative Pete Sessions from Texas, the Republican from Texas.

And he called the actions of many of these anti-ICE protesters not just not prudent, but also criminal acts; specifically referring to their use of whistles.

Like, whether people agree with those actions or not, I'm wondering if you could help me sort of correct the record there. I mean, those actions, are they legal? Are they not? I'm talking about, specifically, people standing on a public right of way and making their voice or whistles heard? MARTIN: Again, this is an administration that makes the law up as it

goes. They think they have the ability to write law in the midst of the actions that they're taking. And the reality is, they don't.

I'm not aware of any federal law that prevents a protester or anyone standing in the, quote unquote, "middle of the road" from using a whistle. There's no indication that that's a violation of any kind of Minnesota law.

So, again, these aren't laws. These are facts. These aren't even -- they're not facts. These are statements, inflammatory statements, hypocritical statements, in many cases, contradictory statements, in most cases, made by this administration to justify the shooting of unarmed victims.

We've seen it not just with Alex Pretti, but also with Renee Good. And we've seen an ICE -- you know, group, ICE agents, that seem to be completely out of control, lack training, lack any kind of discipline, lack an understanding of what citizens' Constitutional rights are. A complete trampling on the Constitutional rights.

And we're seeing gun rights advocates themselves stand up and say, Look, Mr. Pretti was licensed to carry a firearm. That alone should not have made him the victim of a shooting by ICE agents.

And yet, here we go. Here we see this man being smeared for having a gun that was removed. And we have to say that over and over again. The gun appears from that video to have been removed from his person before he was shot.

SANDOVAL: Yes.

MARTIN: And for all purposes, this -- Mr. Pretti, this man, was shot unarmed by these ICE agents.

[00:15:06]

SANDOVAL: Yes, it was absolutely notable, the NRA response that we saw yesterday. I'm glad you mentioned that.

And look, the reality is Alex Pretti was not the first and certainly will not be the last civilian who will use their phone to document what they see. I mean, I did that a reporter many times -- as a reporter many times, standing on the sidewalk from a safe distance.

Areva Martin, really appreciate your time and your analysis, as always. Thank you.

MARTIN: Thank you.

SANDOVAL: Federal investigators, they are looking into what caused a private jet carrying eight people to crash right after takeoff on Sunday night in Maine. And this comes amid the major winter storm that is thrashing the region still.

A source telling CNN that the extent of the injuries of those on board, it is still not known at this time. Federal records do show that the plane is registered to a business in Houston.

Minutes before the crash, controllers and pilots, they can be heard talking about visibility and deicing, but it's still not immediately clear exactly who was talking to whom.

But there is -- we do want to get more now from CNN transportation analyst Mary Schiavo and -- and her assessment of the situation there in Bangor, Maine.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN TRANSPORTATION ANALYST: Well, in this kind of weather, you've got your plane and or attack. This was a Challenger 650. It's a workhorse business jet. There were supposedly eight people on board, which is pretty close to a full load.

So, you've got a loaded-up plane, and then you add on top of that snow and ice.

And of course, the biggest worry for that is that you've -- what's called fouled your lifting surface, your wings. When snow or ice builds up on the wings, then it destroys some of the lift that you need to get that plane off the end of the runway. And of course, that's why you go through the deicing.

But if you wait on the runway, or you have delays before takeoff, et cetera, that deicing effect is reduced literally by the minute or by the second in a heavy snow.

The other problem you have, among others, you have visibility problem. You can have whiteout conditions, and it can blow up very quickly. You might -- you have to have the limited visibility required at an airport for takeoff. But if you get gusting winds and -- and it can shift, you know, second by second -- you might have whiteout conditions just as you're trying to lift off and judge your, you know, the ends of the runway, et cetera.

And then finally, if the runway is at all icy or you've got crosswinds, you literally could exit the runway off the sides, which has happened before.

So, weather can challenge even a jumbo jet. And on this plane with a heavy load, it would be challenging if you had any buildup of ice or snow on the wings. So, there's a lot to look at here.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL: Well, that winter storm, it is still lashing part of the Northeast at this hour. Ahead, a look at the impact from the powerful system, and also how many people are now without power as the brutal cold behind that system begins to settle in.

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[00:21:38] SANDOVAL: More than 800,000 customers across the mid-Atlantic and South, they are still without power at this hour after a massive winter storm swept through much of the U.S., dropping snow and plenty of ice.

And that dangerous ice, it remains on the ground, on trees and power lines. That means power outages.

In Mississippi, the governor said that there has been catastrophic damage to at least one power distribution line.

And the snow also creating some hazard -- hazardous conditions, I should say, for many of the roads, as you see crews trying to clear out some of those roadways.

And the conditions, they are forecast to worsen overnight as those temperatures continue to plummet.

Right now, the system, it is still dropping snow across parts of Northeast there, as you see it along the Eastern Seaboard. And as it pushes East, bitter cold temperatures are moving in, as we said.

At least 11 people, they have already died as temperatures dropped to their coldest so far this winter.

It's a lot of blue on the map there. CNN's Derek van Dam with the latest forecast out of Louisville.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, the wintry precipitation has largely come to an end across the state of Kentucky, including here where I'm located in Louisville.

But of course, this massive winter storm has left its mark. You can see the snow-covered roads here. These businesses were closed on account of the weather.

Now, the -- the real agony sets in, because the mercury in the thermometer is going to drop like a rock behind this cold front that is responsible for the precipitation.

That's still going to be ongoing overnight across parts of the Northeast, including New England. Boston could easily see a foot to a foot and a half of snow.

But the point being is that this precipitation that it left in its wake is going to be encased in very, very cold temperatures. In fact, over 50 percent of the U.S. population will experience wind-chill values below zero in the next couple of days. Let that sink in.

We're feeling it here. You can see the breath coming out of my mouth. It is absolutely frigid. So, when we talk about people who lost power, they're going to not have the ability, perhaps, to warm their homes.

So, you need to look after elderly. You need to look after the vulnerable, especially in this -- in this situation, because it is brutally cold but also dangerously cold, as well.

There's something called a flash freeze that we're also concerned about. This is when we get a brief spike in the temperatures. There was a period when we had that snow transition to freezing rain, then rain in some parts of the Southeast.

Well, then the cold front swept through, and these cold arctic air temperatures are dropping behind it. And that freezes that precipitation that's left over on the ground almost instantaneously. So, that can create black ice. That can create very treacherous travel conditions. And that is really what we're concerned about.

So, as the cold front moves through, the winds pick up, the freezing precipitation or the freezing rain that's encased on power lines and trees could still come down because of the added weight. But also, the stress from the wind that is setting in behind it.

And with no relief in the temperatures, we're not going to get that thawing that we so desperately need to get out of this cold winter cycle that we are in.

So, really, an impactful, very dynamic winter storm. We are ready to say goodbye and good riddance to this. But we still have another couple of days to go over the Eastern half of the U.S.

Back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL: Derek, thank you.

And then there's this. It's pretty telling about the intensity of the storm. It's now taking a toll on air travel across much of the country, with more cancellations now than any time since the pandemic.

[00:25:08]

The tracking site FlightAware, it says on -- said on Sunday that more than 11,000 flights on Sunday alone were canceled, and more than 5,000 were delayed.

I want to show you the scene at Boston Logan International Airport earlier, where almost all flights out of there were canceled.

Major airports from New York to Washington, D.C., actually shut down operations for hours. And when it comes to Reagan National in Washington, that actually topped out at 90 percent of their flights canceled.

Back here to New York, where Mayor Zohran Mamdani is urging all residents to stay indoors amid the brutal winter weather. He says that this is set to be the coldest period the city has seen in the last eight years.

But as our Gloria Pazmino reports, not everyone is listening to officials. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, at least eight inches of snow inside Central Park so far. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani asking New Yorkers to stay out of the streets as much as possible throughout Sunday and going into Monday, because there are thousands of city workers out there now, trying to clear the snow and trying to keep the roadways clear.

Despite that, there were thousands of New Yorkers that were streaming into Central Park throughout the day today, trying to take advantage of the conditions here, trying to enjoy and have fun.

We saw everything from cardboard to snowboards to skis to sleds being used. A lot of very happy children here today, going for a sled in the hills of Central Park.

We spoke to many of them today. All of them said that they were enjoying the conditions, despite the wind and despite the cold. Take a listen.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, we tried to get sleds, and we couldn't find any. So, we Googled how to sled without a sled, and these came up. My son thought the shallow ones would be best. And then we'll try the lid, as well.

PAZMINO: OK, so do you go in the sled or -- how do you do it?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You go in it. You sit in the sled and then --

PAZMINO: OK. And hope for the best.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sure.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We've never -- we've never skied Central Park.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I live, you know, like, six blocks from here. I've always wanted to do it.

PAZMINO: How many times do you go down?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Like 20.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. Like ten.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Like a lot. Yes.

PAZMINO: Now tell me, like, did you have a technique? What was like --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sometimes we dove face first. Sometimes we just went on our butt.

PAZMINO: Now, New York City schools will be closed on Monday, but students will be learning remotely. New York City public libraries, cultural institutions also closed down

on Monday.

The mayor, again, reminding New Yorkers to try and stay off the streets as long as they possibly can so that cleanup efforts can get underway. That massive cleanup effort, surely, expected to continue in the early morning hours of Monday.

Gloria Pazmino, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL: Well, a flood of images from Saturday's fatal shooting in Minneapolis tell one story, but the Trump administration is painting a very different picture of what happened, one that's a pretty tough sell. Just ahead, we go frame by frame, analyzing video of the shooting of Alex Pretti.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:31:40]

SANDOVAL: Welcome back. I'm Polo Sandoval in New York. Let's take a look at today's top stories.

Minnesotans, they are honoring Alex Pretti. He's a 37-year-old intensive care nurse who was shot to death by federal agents this weekend. They've set up a makeshift memorial at the spot where he was killed.

State leaders and anti-ICE protesters are demanding that the federal government withdraw its immigration agents from their state and stop its crackdown on protests.

At least two federal agents involved in the deadly shooting appear to have been wearing body cameras, and that's according to a CNN video review, which suggests that there could be additional footage of the encounter that has not yet been made public by the U.S. government.

Officials saying that Homeland Security is in the process of gathering and analyzing evidence from the scene.

Minnesota's largest public safety labor union now calling for an emergency summit on immigration enforcement policy. Law Enforcement Labor Services are urging states and Department of Homeland Security officials to restore, quote, "a functional relationship that respects each other's distinct roles and responsibilities."

We want to get you back to those videos that were taken by residents on Saturday, as Pretti was shot, as they paint a very different picture of what happened than the explanation given by Homeland Security.

CNN's Gianna Toboni walks us through the events that unfolded, frame by frame.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GIANNA TOBONI, CNN (voice-over): Federal immigration officers fatally shot a man Saturday in Minneapolis. He was an ICU nurse who worked at a local Veterans Affairs hospital. Another controversial killing by U.S. immigration agents and the second U.S. citizen killed this month.

CNN analyzed cell-phone footage from multiple angles. Taken together, they appear at odds with the Department of Homeland Security's initial claims about the lead-up to officers firing on Alex Pretti.

Around 9 a.m. Central, video captures two people approaching a federal immigration officer in front of an unidentified vehicle. The sound of whistles is blaring in the background.

Alex Pretti enters the frame here. He's filming an officer interacting with protesters and waving a car through. Fifteen seconds later, Pretti yells.

ALEX PRETTI, PROTESTOR: Hey, do not push them into the traffic!

TOBONI (voice-over): In their statement, DHS said that an individual approached officers with, quote, a nine-millimeter semi-automatic handgun.

This video seems to show officers approaching Pretti instead of the other way around. We'll see later that Pretti does appear to have had a gun in his waistband, but this video shows he didn't have a gun in his hand, only a phone.

Video from this white car shows an up-close angle of a federal immigration officer pushing one protester. Then, three seconds later, he pushes Pretti.

And then, as the camera comes into focus, you see the same federal officer push a third protester with the orange backpack.

Pretti raises his hand and turns away just as the officer sprays him with a chemical irritant. You see Pretti and the other protester trying to help the person with the orange backpack.

You can see here an officer pulling Pretti off of this person. Three more officers join, and then two more. Pretti is on the ground under them.

One officer in a tan beanie can be seen repeatedly striking Pretti's head with a metal can.

You can see an officer in a gray jacket walk into the frame. There isn't a gun in his hand.

[00:35:05]

Seconds later, officers shout --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He has a gun! A gun! TOBONI (voice-over): The officer removes the gun from Pretti's belt. The officer steps away from the scene, carrying a firearm, seen here in his right hand.

Then, gunfire.

(GUNFIRE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (SCREAMING) What the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) did you just do?

TOBONI (voice-over): At least ten shots ring out.

We looked back at the scene from different angles and slowed down the footage. This officer, wearing a black beanie, can be seen drawing his firearm and pointing it in Pretti's direction.

We can't see his gun when the first shot is fired, but we can see that this officer fired the second shot. In this angle, you see, a second officer also had his gun drawn.

And here, he's pointing his weapon at Pretti as we hear gunshots, though it isn't clear if he's the one firing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What the (EXPLETIVE DELETED)? Did they (EXPLETIVE DELETED) kill that guy?

TOBONI (voice-over): Pretti collapses onto the ground as the officers scatter backwards from around him.

The same agent in the black beanie from earlier can be seen firing five final shots as Pretti lies there motionless.

Nobody approached his body for 24 seconds. When officers do return to Pretti, they appear to begin searching his body.

Video shows that about a minute after Pretti collapsed, immigration officers ask for medical support.

When CNN asked DHS about the officer removing the gun before the shooting, DHS repeated their earlier statement: quote, "Officers attempted to disarm the suspect, but the armed suspect violently resisted."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL: And as the U.S. continues grappling with the most recent killing of a U.S. citizen by federal officers, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz held a press conference on Sunday.

Listen to him as he appealed directly to the American public by posing a very stark question.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WALZ: I've got a question for all of you. What side do you want to be on? This side of an all-powerful federal government that can kill, injure, menace, and kidnap its citizens off the streets?

Or on the side of a nurse at the V.A. Hospital who died bearing witness to such government?

We have got children in Minnesota hiding in their houses, afraid to go outside. Many of us grew up reading that story of Anne Frank. Somebody's going to write that children's story about Minnesota. And there's one person who can end this now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: And despite what videos of the shooting show, and with an investigation far from concluding, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem continues to defend the officers' use of deadly force, faulting Alex Pretti for approaching the federal agents.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KRISTI NOEM, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: We do know that he came to that scene and impeded a law enforcement operation, which is against federal law. It's a felony.

When he did that, interacting with those agents, when they tried to get him to disengage, he became aggressive and resisted them throughout that process.

These officers used their training, followed their protocols, and were in fear of their lives and the people around them. And that's how this tragedy unfolded, and we hope we never see it again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: The Senate minority leader says that his party will block a government spending bill if the Department of Homeland Security funding is included.

The House passed its own DHS funding bill on Thursday, but blocked Democrats' request for the measure to require agents to wear body cameras and other guardrails.

Here's more from a Democratic lawmaker from Minnesota.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ANGIE CRAIG (D-MN): Are we OK that an authoritarian administration is taking over American cities? Are we OK that our First Amendment, our Second Amendment, and our Fourth Amendment rights under the Constitution are being violated? Hell no, we're not OK.

But if we don't take a stand now, at this moment in time, America, look at what is happening in Minnesota. This is coming to a city near you, if we don't take a stand now.

(END VIDEO CLIP) SANDOVAL: And the department is also coming under fire from some

Republicans, GOP Senator Bill Cassidy posting this on Saturday on social media: "The events in Minneapolis are incredibly disturbing. There must be a full joint federal and state investigation. We can trust the American people with the truth."

Let's bring in CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein for more on this.

It is wonderful to see you again, Ron. Thank you so much for joining us.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Good to be with you.

SANDOVAL: So, let's pick up on -- let's pick up on that spending bill. In fact, you and I spoke about this just a couple of weeks ago --

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

SANDOVAL: -- after ICE shot and killed Renee Good. We started seeing Democratic lawmakers rally around the idea of stalling a spending deal If it included some of the ICE funding.

[00:40:04]

I'm curious, from your perspective, what has Alex Pretti's death done to perhaps sort of add more momentum to those efforts? Is a shutdown, more likely after this latest shooting?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, first of all, I think a -- a -- opposition to the DHS funding is now inescapable for -- for Democrats and perhaps even for a few Republicans.

I mean, as I've said to you before, I think what we are watching unfold under this administration, through their mass deportation program -- in particular, the actions against protesters and American citizens -- is the most sustained application of -- of force against American citizens by any governmental entity since the height of the civil rights movement in the early 1960s, when the Southern segregationist states used fire hoses and nightsticks and police dogs.

And so, it becomes unavoidable for Democrats. I mean, if you ask Democratic strategists, many of them would prefer to be talking solely about affordability and healthcare cuts. And kind of the inability of the Trump administration to deliver on their major promise in '24 of reducing people's cost of living.

But, you know, when you have events of this magnitude unfolding, there simply is no way to look beyond it. And the cracks you are seeing among Republicans in Congress, while still relatively minor, given the -- given the severity and the gravity of what's going on in Minnesota, I think further adds momentum to that.

And I think there will be a confrontation over this. They may separate this from the other spending bills. But there is simply no possible way, in the aftermath of two killings of American citizens, for Democrats to allow this to just kind of, you know, sweep on by.

SANDOVAL: Yes. What was interesting is during the last funding fight that led to a shutdown, you saw lawmakers cross party lines.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

SANDOVAL: And experience some -- some blowback for that.

It's interesting that now we're in a position where you're seeing Republicans, some Republicans on Capitol Hill take issues with the ICE agents. And now potentially, you know, siding with some of their Democratic counterparts.

So, if this funding fight is inescapable, as you point out, and we see Democrats deliver with their threat, maybe with some Republicans in tow, is there any sense of how much support they're likely to get from constituents, given the widespread opposition to -- to ICE in Minneapolis, not to mention what we've heard from some Republicans?

I mean, should -- should some of President Trump's advisers, like Stephen Miller, be worried about what the tea leaves could be reading?

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Look, I think from fairly early on in the administration, the public differentiated between the president's actions at the border, which they largely support.

You know, there was a lot of frustration among voters about Biden's immigration policies at the border, the sense that the border had gotten out of control. And Trump has had majority approval for his handling of the border throughout his presidency.

But the public has differentiated between that and the mass deportation program, which has drawn increasing opposition. "The New York Times"/Siena poll last week, 61 percent of Americans overall, 71 percent of independents, said that ICE was going too far in -- in the mass deportation program. That was before this second killing.

And as I wrote earlier this month, I think that the public's tolerance, and even the tolerance among Republicans in Congress for killing middle-aged, middle-class, white American citizens in the process of this mass deportation effort is a lot lower than Stephen Miller would predict or prefer.

And, you know, I do think that the -- whatever else happens, the message of the past few weeks in Minnesota, borne at terrible cost, is that this is an untenable way of dealing with this problem.

I mean, they've arrested, like, 350, 370,000 undocumented immigrants. There are 14 million in the country.

If you take what is happening in Minneapolis to the scale required to make a real dent on that number, you can envision damage to the country that is almost unimaginable and might be irreparable.

SANDOVAL: And, given the politically precarious position that Donald Trump could be in right now because of the -- what we've seen in Minneapolis, do you see a potential political lifeline, should he seek meaningful immigration reform, something that we haven't seen in decades?

I mean, do you think that the state of politics around immigration right now make it possible to see some reform? And I ask this, because it was just a couple of weeks ago when he sat down with "The New York Times."

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

SANDOVAL: And he hinted that we could see an announcement on that front.

BROWNSTEIN: Well, you know, as I wrote earlier this month, you know, I think the administration is inadvertently going to prove that you cannot solve this problem solely with the iron fist; that the costs are simply too high to try to do this through the level of violence and coercion that they are attempting, not only against the immigrant community itself, but again, against American citizens.

[00:45:12]

So, in that sense, I think it does lay the predicate for eventually dealing with this problem in a more balanced way.

And there is now legislation, bipartisan legislation in the House with about 15 sponsors in each party, that would, like the big immigration reform bills that passed the Senate on a bipartisan basis in 2006 and 2013, couple tougher enforcement at the border; a big reform of the asylum process, with legal status for most of the undocumented who were here before -- who arrived before the Biden presidency.

And this, in fact -- this proposal moves a big step, makes a big concession toward the right in rejecting and abandoning those earlier proposals -- pathway to citizenship -- only allowing some kind of permanent legal status.

I do not see that going forward while Trump is president, while Stephen Miller is in the White House. But I do think that inadvertently, they are going to demonstrate that there is simply -- that we are going to try the preferred response of the right forever to dealing with this problem, which is essentially the iron fist.

And we are in the process, I think, of demonstrating that the costs of that approach are simply higher than the American public will accept for the benefits that come with it.

SANDOVAL: Yes, some absolutely fascinating insight. Ron Brownstein has said before, I'm so glad you're a night owl like us so we can get this live analysis from you. Really appreciate your time. Have a good week.

BROWNSTEIN: Thanks for having me under such -- unfortunately, it's under such bad circumstances.

SANDOVAL: Yes, I know. Of course. Ron, thank you again.

BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.

SANDOVAL: Still to come here on CNN NEWSROOM, we do go to Washington, D.C., for a look at how the brutal winter storm in the U.S. is impacting the nation's capital. Stay with us.

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SANDOVAL: A brutal winter storm sweeping across parts of the U.S., leaving nearly 90 million people in the cold.

[00:50:03]

Here's a look at the current wind chill conditions right now; what it actually feels like outside. We're seeing temperatures dip below zero. Places like Chicago, Kansas City, Minneapolis.

Ice is one of the biggest threats to states down South, where hundreds of thousands of customers are without power, some due to icy power lines like the ones you see here. And outages could last days.

Schools in many major U.S. cities, they've actually canceled classes or moved to remote learning.

In the nation's capital, many areas have gotten 6 to 12 inches of snow, with some sleet mixed in. Here's CNN's Michael Yoshida in Washington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAEL YOSHIDA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Clear and cold conditions here in our nation's capital. But what a weather journey we've been on throughout this major storm.

When our crews first got out here near the Capitol area early Sunday morning, we were in a winter snow globe. Big flakes filling the sky, where it was even hard to see the Capitol, to see other monuments.

While you were out and about, as the day went on, we saw those conditions continue to change to -- to smaller flakes and eventually just a mix -- wintry mix of sleet and freezing rain.

You can see even right now, all this soft snow, it's -- it's started to freeze over as this all cools off and freezes into the night.

With that being said, we saw a lot of people out here throughout the day. They were cross-country skiing. They were making snowmen. They were having a massive snowball fight by the Washington Monument, doing anything they could to really try and make the best of this wintry weather.

While all that was going on, of course, we had hundreds of crews out in the roadways, trying to clear all of this snow, all of this ice.

And for the first few hours of this storm, they're just trying to keep up with all of those flakes. But as these conditions changed, so did their strategy. And driving with the director for the Public Works Department here in

Washington, D.C., he talked with us about the challenges they're facing with these cooler temperatures in the overnight hours. Here's what he had to say.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've gone from a light, fluffy snow, which was really easy to push. You know, it blows a little bit with the wind, as well. Now, as the air temperature's coming up, as you said, it's switched over to sleet, which is going to compact the snow, make it a little bit denser, which is harder to push. But then also on the back end with the cold temps, and it's more prone to freeze into solid ice, which is a real problem.

YOSHIDA: And the director telling me that, with their normal snow team, plus some of the contractors they hired just for this massive storm, they have more than a thousand people working on these snow and ice removal efforts.

They also have more than 300 different pieces of equipment -- snow plows and other things -- out throughout the Washington, D.C. area, trying to clear all of the snow and ice.

We're told this will be something they're working on throughout the night. And hopefully, midday Monday, they'll start to have made most of the main roads cleared in the effort to, again, get this city back up and running.

In Washington, D.C., Michael Yoshida, CNN Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL: We'll be right back.

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[00:56:56]

SANDOVAL: Appreciate you watching. I'm Polo Sandoval in New York. I'll join you again after a short break with more CNN NEWSROOM.

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