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CNN This Morning

Deanne Criswell is Interviewed about the Storms; ICU Nurse Killed by ICE; Massive Storm Hits New York; Zaynab Mohamed is Interviewed about the Pretti Shooting; NRA Calls for Probe into Pretti Shooting. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired January 26, 2026 - 06:30   ET

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

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[06:31:26]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. TIM WALZ (D-MN): Closing the crime scene, sweeping away the evidence, defying a court order and not allowing anyone to look at it.

This is an inflection point, America.

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AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Today, officials in Minnesota are fighting for evidence in the Alex Pretti killing. A judge on Sunday barred the FBI and DHS from destroying or altering evidence. They hope to avoid a repeat of the aftermath of the killing of Renee Good when state officials were denied access to the investigation.

Good morning, everybody. I'm Audie Cornish. I want to thank you for joining me on CNN THIS MORNING.

It's half past the hour, and here is what's happening right now.

The FAA looking into what caused a private jet to crash and flip over in Bangor, Maine. The small plane was carrying eight people. It crashed right after takeoff. Right now it's not known the extent of their injuries. And this comes in the midst of a winter storm. Minutes before the crash, controllers had mentioned low visibility and deicing.

And a man has been arrested after punching Florida Congressman Maxwell Frost in the face. This happened at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah. The congressman wrote on Twitter that the man said that Trump was going to deport him before screaming racist remarks.

And Super Bowl 60 now set. The New England Patriots versus the Seattle Seahawks. The Patriots seeking their NFL record seventh Super Bowl victory. These two teams met 11 years ago. And back then the Patriots came out on top. And this winter storm has ushered in extreme cold watches for nearly 90 million people across the country. The brunt of the storm's impact was in the south, where freezing ice, downed tree limbs and power lines. Some 800,000 across the country right now still without power. Officials warn road conditions remain unsafe.

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GOV. ANDY BESHEAR (D-KY): It is simply not safe to drive on our roads. We're asking everyone to avoid travel, not only because you could hurt yourself or someone else, but also because fuel availability is low.

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CORNISH: Joining me now to discuss, Deanne Criswell, former FEMA administrator.

Thank you so much for being here.

First, I want to start with the concerns you have as a first responder when you learn about power outages following a snowstorm. What are the things responders are going to be looking for?

DEANNE CRISWELL, FORMER FEMA ADMINISTRATOR: Good morning, Audie.

I think when we look at this storm right here, the biggest thing is not just that the power is going to be out, but it's going to be probably an extended power outage in these frigid cold conditions. And so, when you have power outages at this scale, you know, you're worried about the critical infrastructure, like nursing homes and hospitals and the public facilities. But also, how are you going to be able to power buildings where if people need to get someplace warm, that you can have a shelter for people to go to, because individuals rely on this electricity for their medical devices or to keep their families warm. And so, this extended power outage, I think, is going to be the biggest concern, especially with the cold temperatures.

CORNISH: I have to admit, having done a lot of reporting in the southern part of the U.S., I think about those mobile home communities. I think about these really rural areas that aren't used to this kind of weather. And then the roads are not passable.

CRISWELL: Exactly. I think, you know, when you look at places like New York and Massachusetts, they get storms like this all the time.

[06:35:04]

But these images that are coming out of Mississippi, this is an area that isn't used to this kind of cold for an extended period of time. This kind of a power outage. And so, people need to listen to their local officials about what they can do to make sure that they're keeping themselves safe. But also, I think, as you heard from Governor Beshear in the previous segment, stay off the roads. First responders need to get to people who need lifesaving help. And if you are on the road and you are -- you get stuck, you're just creating a challenge for them, right? You either become another person they have to respond to, or you get in the way of their ability to be able to get to somebody who needs help.

So, listen to your local officials. If you don't need to go outside, stay inside until the power can get restored and until they can get these roads cleared. It makes it safer for everybody.

CORNISH: OK, Deanne Criswell, thank you so much for being with us.

CRISWELL: Thank you, Audie.

CORNISH: Now I want to turn to this, the hours after the weekends shooting. The Trump administration quick to once again prejudge and label the actions of the person who died. In this case, 37-year-old Veterans Affairs nurse Alex Ppretti.

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KRISTI NOEM, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: This individual went and impeded their law enforcement operations, attacked those officers, had a weapon on him and multiple, dozens of rounds of ammunition, wishing to inflict harm on these officers coming, brandishing like that.

GREG BOVINO, BORDER PATROL COMMANDER-AT-LARGE: This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.

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CORNISH: So, looking at the CNN analysis, there's no video angle of the incident reviewed where Pretti is seen with a gun in his hand, just his cell phone. And that's before being taken down by six agents.

When pressed by "The Wall Street Journal" about the incident over the weekend, President Trump didn't say, quote, whether the officer who shot Alex Pretti had done the right thing.

Joining me now is the group chat. Isaac Dovere, CNN senior reporter, Francesca Chambers, White House correspondent for "USA Today," and Sabrina Rodriguez, politics reporter for "The Wall Street Journal."

The administration put out a couple voices this weekend, and they were saying a couple things over and over again, using the language of domestic terrorism to talk about protests and the activities on the street. And Greg Bovino was the person out defending ICE.

Before I play some of him, Francesca, can you talk about what their focus was in messaging to the public?

FRANCESCA CHAMBERS, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, "USA TODAY": Well, and also Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, was also out over the weekend talking about this too from the legal aspect. And you talked -- you asked about, you know, what is essentially the White House's narrative at this point. They're pushing back aggressively saying that this would have never happened, including President Trump saying this, if state and local law enforcement officials had been cooperating with these ICE officials in the first place, that what they're calling on them to do is to essentially, you know, stop these sanctuary city policies, to send their local police officers to help with these ICE operations.

Now, what we've heard over the weekend from both Governor Walz, as well as Jacob Frey, who's the local mayor, is to say that they do not want ICE anymore in the city. That they would like the administration to withdraw from Minneapolis.

CORNISH: Yes.

CHAMBERS: But the Trump administration saying that they're not planning to do that at this time.

CORNISH: So, what that means is the administration, at times, is sort of skirting this conversation about what happened in the moment.

I want to play for you guys an interaction between our own Dana Bash and Greg Bovino when he was asked kind of about who the victim is in this situation.

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DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: It feels as though, in some ways, you're blaming the victim here.

GREG BOVINO, BORDER PATROL COMMANDER-AT-LARGE: The victim -- the victims are the Border Patrol agents. I'm not blaming the Border Patrol agents. The victim are the Border Patrol agents. The suspect put himself in that situation. The victims are the Border Patrol agents there.

GOV. TIM WALZ (D-MN): Thank God we have video. Because according to DHS, these seven heroic guys took an onslaught of a battalion against him or something. It's nonsense, people. It is nonsense. And it's lies.

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CORNISH: There's also this court affidavit from a witness at the time saying, "I have read the statement from DHS about what happened. It is wrong. The man did not approach agents with a gun. He approached them with a camera. He was just trying to help a woman get up and they took him to the ground."

Sabrina, I want to come to you because you've got an eye on voters and how they're hearing this. And as far as I can see, voters have been home, in a snowstorm, with nothing to do but look at these videos for themselves. And so, how is that affecting the administration's ability to sell them on some other version of events?

[06:40:02]

SABRINA RODRIGUEZ, POLITICS REPORTER, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": I mean, Audie, it's absolutely a challenging time for the Trump administration in trying to shape this narrative. You know, some people are calling for, oh, the fact that there needs to be a full investigation. But the Trump administration is doing what we have seen the president and his officials do all year, which is try and shape the narrative, deny, deny, deny, kind of put forth a narrative because they know that this is playing out on social media right here, right now. You know, this is not a days, weeks, months from now for an investigation to play out. People are watching this video and they want to give something, particularly to the president's base, to be able to talk about, to be able to frame it, for people to have a different takeaway.

I think this is the latest example of the polarization we see in the United States right now where people can look at the same video and sort of have different conclusions, despite us all seeing the same thing in the video. But I think, you know, this is a challenging time for the administration because we've seen polls show that an issue that used to be his strength on immigration is really slipping because of the imagery that's coming out from ICE in Minneapolis and ICE's actions across the country.

CORNISH: There's -- you guys are talking about how some people are seeing this video differently. You know, I was reading through Fox. There was an op-ed on Fox News saying, "anti-ice agitators adopt Palestinian tactics, including martyrdom," and talking about the idea that basically protesters are menacing authorities. And then when authorities strike back, claim victimhood.

I found this interesting because, again, trying to over and over again say somebody on the scene who is filming, who is active in one way or another is there with the intent to do harm.

And, Isaac, do you think that that is resonating with I guess the public, right, who is involved?

EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: It seems to be. Look, and what Bovino said to Dana Bash yesterday, the striking thing to me there is that this is -- what he says is that the people who were doing the tackling and the tear gassing, and then the shooting of Alex Pretti were the victims. And that Pretti was not a victim at all.

And, in fact, it's not just that. It's that he called him -- he called Pretti a suspect, which is a term that is used at a later point in the investigation, usually, than where we are now. And that really speaks to how the administration is approaching this. They're saying to people, look, you've seen the videos. We're going to tell you what happened anyway.

CORNISH: Yes. Yes.

DOVERE: And the question that it seems like is sitting with a lot of people is whether they can look at those videos and whether they agree that Pretti was an instigator in some way or whatever's going on. That is -- that's a lot of people. It's a lot of federal officers going after one or maybe two people there, the other person they push out of the way. That is not what we are used to seeing in the way that police tend to handle things. And it speaks, it seems like, to the level of training that these people have had for the situations that they are in.

In many cities around the country there are police who are trained for dealing with protesters or dealing with crowd control, for dealing with people who get out of hand. These people do not seem to have had that kind of training. And meanwhile you have the administration officials who are not approaching things in talking about this or the Renee Good situation in the way that we are used to people talking about it, waiting for the facts to come before they start speaking about them.

CORNISH: And in the meantime, there is a movement on Capitol Hill as we get towards the government funding question to say should lawmakers approve the current funding if they're upset with ICE. We're going to be talking about that more later this week.

But you guys, stay with me.

In the meantime, our breaking news coverage continues with this record snowfall of, well, at least we shattered the record of 100 years old. We're live from New York City as the lingering storm continues to bring bad weather.

Plus, I'm going to talk to a Minnesota state senator about what she's hearing from her constituents this morning.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What's happening here is completely wrong. It's completely wrong. And it's -- I -- we couldn't stomach ourselves if we stayed home.

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[06:48:44]

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got more in a 24 hour period than we've ever had in the last. I think, like 40 years.

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CORNISH: The National Weather Service reporting some parts of Oklahoma got 14 inches of snow. Now the concern is the bitter temperatures and that wet snow turning to ice. Something people on the East Coast and cities like D.C. are also feeling.

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ANTHONY CRISPINO, INTERIM DIRECTOR, D.C. DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS: 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 is 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.

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CORNISH: In the south, it's the ice toppling trees and power lines. More than a million people are now without power. Between the snow and the ice, Sunday was the worst day for flight cancellations since the pandemic, with more than 17,000 flights canceled.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's nowhere else to go. We can't get any Ubers. We can't find any hotels. This is the warmest place we've got.

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CORNISH: New York City got 11 inches of snow, and that's where we find CNN's Leigh Waldman.

Leigh, give us the update.

[06:50:01]

LEIGH WALDMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Audie, you mentioned 11 inches of snow here in Central Park. That is shattering a 121-year record.

Now, there are people who are out here plowing their sidewalks, trying to make sure those are clear so people can walk around. You can see the roads have been thoroughly plowed as well. Thousands of sanitation workers have been working throughout the night trying to make sure that these roads stay open so people can make their way around. Not a lot of traffic down Seventh Avenue, but there still are some cars driving and people walking. We saw some New Yorkers with bags. Looks like they have their bagels, their coffee. They're heading out to the park. There's people running in the park. People taking their dogs, ready to go sledding this morning.

All of this, though, is against what the mayor of New York is actually talking about, telling people they need to stay home.

Take a listen to what Mayor Zohran Mamdani had to say.

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MAYOR ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D-NY): There are still far too many New Yorkers out on the roads. Conditions are dangerous.

And I can think of no better excuse for New Yorkers to stay home, take a long nap, or take advantage of our public libraries offer of free access to "Heated Rivalry" on e-book or audiobook for anyone with a library card.

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WALDMAN: So, yes, some good advice from the mayor right there.

But, Audie, we're doing some science experiments for you so you can see just what we're dealing with. It's very cold. We've got our thermometer here in the snow. It shows you it's below freezing. Those feel-like temperatures in the single digits this morning.

And we've got our ruler here. Now, I haven't found flat ground, but the ruler, several inches of snow piled up along the sidewalks here. But like I said, we just saw some people walking their dogs. They had the lid of a storage container ready to go sledding down these hills in Central Park. And to really top off a New York City snowstorm, we saw a rat playing in the snow. So, that kind of brings you the full feel of what's happening here in Central Park.

CORNISH: No, it's nice to have a lighthearted moment on this Monday.

Leigh Waldman, thank you so much.

So, I want to turn back to Minneapolis. The man killed by a federal agent being remembered by his family as a kind-hearted soul. Mourners braved frigid temperatures to gather at the scene of the shooting last night for a vigil in honor of Alex Pretti. His friends remembered the 37-year-old V.A. nurse as somebody who stood up for others

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CHRISTOPHER DI SALVI, ALEX PRETTI'S FRIEND: He was kind. He was friendly to everybody that I know. I can't stress how much he was kind to everybody.

HEATHER ZIELINSKI, ALEX PRETTI'S FRIEND: Absolutely he was standing up for someone. Absolutely he was standing up for that woman that he was trying to help up. He was trying to help her get out of that situation.

Could they have not killed my friend? Yes, they could have not killed my friend. They did not need to kill my friend.

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CORNISH: Joining me now to talk about this, Zaynab Mohamed, Minnesota state senator.

We were just talking about images from the vigil. Can I get from you sort of what you have been hearing from some of your constituents in the last 48 hours?

ZAYNAB MOHAMED (D), Minnesota STATE SENATE: Yes, good morning. Thank you so much for having me, Audie.

People in our city and my constituents are heartbroken. They are deeply sad. I was there the night of the vigil. There were thousands of people on the ground in negative whatever degree weather. It was pretty cold. But people in the city and in this state are grieving the loss of another life at the hands of ICE agents. And it's been a pretty mourning (ph) time for all of us here in Minneapolis.

CORNISH: Are there calls for the Democratic leadership in the state to do more? And are people saying that they should somehow be more active? MOHAMED: You know, I hear that a little bit, but I think that across

the state of Minnesota people have been united behind our Democratic leadership, whether it's Governor Tim Walz or Mayor Jacob Frey or our chief in Minneapolis, Chief O'Hara, they have been steadfast on the front lines, asking for more, asking for a thorough investigation into this.

You heard the governor come out yesterday and said -- and say he has every intention of investigating what happened here. The mayor has been doing the same. I think our leadership is doing what they can to work with this federal government. But they have been steadfast with the people of Minneapolis.

CORNISH: Is there anything to be done to support the protesters? Meaning, are you hearing people with more concerns that they, too, could end up in the literal line of fire of ICE?

MOHAMED: Yes, absolutely. We've seen, you know, two lives at this point back to back in less than two weeks, taking whether it's Renee Good or Alex Pretti, both of them peaceful. What we're hearing from people who are doing this work, which is going around and taking videos and observing what ICE agents are doing to their immigrant neighbors, people are afraid and they're scared that they can be the next Alex Pretti or that they can be the next Renee Good. We have thousands of people, well over 20,000 people who are observed trainers to do it peacefully, to take videos, to make sure that they can report it to organizations like the ACLU, to ensure that people's constitutional rights are not being violated.

[06:55:14]

And what we're seeing is ICE agents shoot people, pepper spray people. And I think our city, considering what we've been through in the last five years, people in this city have been calm. But the anger, you can feel it in the air. People are getting angrier as the time goes.

CORNISH: That's Zaynab Mohamed, Minnesota state senator. I hope we can speak with you again soon. Thank you for your time.

MOHAMED: Thank you for having me, Audie.

CORNISH: One more aspect of this. The National Rifle Association joining other gun rights groups in pushing for an investigation into the killing of Alex Pretti, who was a lawful gun owner. In a statement posted on X, the NRA said, quote, "responsible voices should be awaiting a full investigation, not making generalizations and demonizing law abiding citizens."

Now, this is all in response to the Trump administration's claim that Pretti posed a danger to officers simply for having a gun.

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KRISTI NOEM, DHS SECRETARY: I don't know of any peaceful protester that shows up with a gun and ammunition, rather than a sign.

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CORNISH: OK, you guys, we're there showing not Alex Pretti, but that is Kyle Rittenhouse from a few years ago during the 2020 elections, who became a kind of martyr on the right after he shot a protester. The reason why this is coming up is because after the shooting of Pretti, the federal officials did release a photo of a gun, not a gun in his hand or anything like that, but saying that this is something he had on his person. But it is not typical to see the NRA push back against the Trump administration in this way, Isaac.

DOVERE: No, and it's not just the NRA. You see a lot of people who care a lot about the Second Amendment and talked about Second Amendment rights over the course of the politics of the last few years who are raising questions of why this is an issue. Minnesota is a concealed carry state. Pretti was, it seems like, within his rights to have that gun on him. There are questions of whether he should have had his I.D. or how that was done.

But in the video that we see, it is -- it seems to most of the people who have looked at it, including our CNN analysis, that what he was holding was a cell phone as he videoed what was going on and that he was not the one who approached, but the ICE agents were the ones who approached. We'll see what happens with the investigation.

CORNISH: Yes.

DOVERE: But that's how the video analysis people have done is. And that is itself a question that needs to be sorted out. But there is nothing in itself illegal about how -- the way that Pretti had that gun on his belt.

CORNISH: Right. But this is coming up because you have people like U.S. attorney Bill Essayli, who is saying, "if you approach law enforcement with a gun, there's a high likelihood they will be legally justified in shooting you. Don't do it."

So, you have this sort of -- people who are out there defending the administration, saying, look, if you -- if you're out there with a weapon, you're going to be in trouble. The odds of you being in trouble are quite high. And that's why it was surprising to see the NRA or the National Association of Gun Rights come out with their tweet saying, "the mere presence of a firearm is not evidence of criminal intent. Anyone who claims to be pro-gun should never suggest otherwise." And it says, "gun owners do this peacefully every time a blue state tries to pass gun control."

Sabrina, I don't know, do you see, not a division, but a conversation happening between gun rights owners who say, wait a second, the -- if you're going to go around slandering this guy, this is not the way we want to see you do it

RODRIGUEZ: Absolutely. I think we're seeing a unique situation here because in the confrontations that we've seen between protesters and federal law enforcement, there's a lot of that typical polarization. The both sides digging in here. But I think some of the allies that we've often seen with the president and with Republicans are kind of saying, wait a minute, like, we have questions here about this, and this should not be the message that's going out to the American public when it comes to gun rights and when it's coming to what your rights are as it pertains to the Second Amendment.

CORNISH: Right. Again, that argument that just having a gun means criminal intent, which is what the administration is, in effect, saying, right, Francesca?

CHAMBERS: Well, I mean (INAUDIBLE) --

CORNISH: That he showed up armed with multiple munitions. Yes.

CHAMBERS: Well, and the administration isn't going to listen to Tim Walz or Jacob Frey, who they've been arguing with for weeks prior to this. But potentially, you know, they -- something that could have an impact is when President Trump is hearing from Republicans on this issue. It's not just the National Rifle Association. You heard from Kevin Stitt over the -- over the weekend that, you know, federalism, usually there are states rights involved.

[07:00:01]

And you also heard from James Comer, another ally of the president, who leads the Oversight Committee in the House of Representatives, saying at this point, you know, maybe if Minnesota doesn't want you there --

CORNISH: Yes.

CHAMBERS: If Minneapolis doesn't want you there, you should leave. So, you're hearing from more Republicans on Capitol Hill and across the country at this point on the social.

CORNISH: OK. Francesca, I'm going to leave it there, because you're right, there are many senators we are going to be watching this week to see if they raise concerns about somehow pausing funding in the fight over ICE.

Thank you for waking up with us. The news is next.