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New CNN Analysis Focuses on the Two Officers Who Shot Pretti; Senate Shutdown Deal Stalls as Funding Set to Expire. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired January 30, 2026 - 06:00   ET

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

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN ANCHOR: Little does he know the woman behind the mask -- well, she's actually a maid. Yerin Ha plays the female lead in the Cinderella story.

[06:00:11]

Several other Bridgerton siblings have also returned for the season. Part two of season four drops on Netflix February 26.

OK, that's going to do it for us this morning and this week. Thanks for joining us here on EARLY START. I'm Rahel Solomon, live in New York. CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everybody. I'm Audie Cornish.

And there is outrage this morning, and it is about ICE. A government shutdown looking more and more likely as more Americans are in favor of abolishing ICE. more than ever before.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): Until ICE is properly reined in and overhauled, the DHS funding bill doesn't have the votes to pass the Senate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: And a nationwide ICE out. No school, no work, no shopping. We're going to talk about whether or not this protest will work.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The entire country is shutting down. It's an economic blackout.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: And the power is still out in parts of the South, and it's only going to get colder.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's very, very difficult to be fully prepared for things that are unprecedented.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: We begin this morning with new CNN analysis, focusing on the two federal agents who shot and killed Alex Pretti last weekend. Now, currently, they are on administrative leave as the investigation unfolds.

CNN's Gianna Toboni has a new analysis of footage from the shooting. And I just want to warn you ahead of time: some of these images may be disturbing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GIANNA TOBONI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This CNN analysis focuses on the two officers that raised their guns, seen here, one wearing a green shirt and black hat and the other in a tan beanie, and sheds light on how their actions escalated the situation before it became deadly.

At 8:56 a.m., we see this officer in the green shirt for the first time in this video. Later, you'll see he's wearing a bulletproof vest labeled "U.S. Border Patrol," along with a patch of the state flag of Texas.

Here he is on Nicollet Avenue. You can see him shaking his spray as the sound of whistles blare in the background.

We see Alex Pretti for the first time here in a video filmed from a car driving by. Pretti and three other people are across the street. They're standing next to a federal officer.

Seconds later, an officer pushes Pretti to the sidewalk. Pretti is filming while stepping backwards. A moment later, this person falls to the ground as an officer begins to restrain him. The officer in the green shirt rushes over to assist him.

Together, they drag this person off the street as protesters yell at the agents.

That first officer in the green shirt would next be seen sitting inside his car, here.

We now want to turn your attention to the second officer wearing a tan beanie. According to a report from Customs and Border Protection's investigative body, officers ordered these female civilians, and later Pretti, to move out of the roadway, and they did not.

At that time, Pretti can be seen directing traffic past the officers and protesters. The officer in the tan beanie shoves the two women in the middle of the street, prompting Pretti to yell out.

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

TOBONI (voice-over): Watching the shoving across the street, the officer in the green shirt is now standing outside of his car. Meanwhile, the officer in the tan beanie turns his attention to

Pretti, pushing him out of the way before shoving one of the women to the ground. Pretti steps between them, and the officer pepper sprays him in the face.

As Pretti tries to help the woman to her feet, multiple officers grab him and pull him to the ground.

At this point, the officer, wearing the green shirt and black hat approaches. You can see him reach for his spray here and then attempt to use it on the people pushed against the car. It appears to malfunction.

As we slow this footage down, you can see that he then turns toward Pretti, who is being held down by other agents. According to CBP, they were attempting to take Pretti into custody, and that he resisted.

Based on these videos, Pretti can be seen on the ground with more than five officers around him. At this exact moment, on the other side of the scrum, the officer in the tan beanie starts beating Pretti in the head with a metal spray canister.

Another officer in a gray coat removes Pretti's handgun from his waistband directly in front of the officer in the green shirt here, though it's unclear if he sees it.

[06:05:02]

He pushes the officer in the gray coat to the side, drawing his gun and pointing it at Pretti, who is down on his knees, bent forward. One second later, we hear the first gunshot.

The officer in the green shirt's gun now becomes visible again. We see him fire the second, third, and fourth shots.

We can see the officer in the tan beanie raise his gun, and a fifth shot is heard while the other officer's gun is pointed to the ground.

There's a one-second pause where Pretti is lying on the ground, face up. He appears to be completely incapacitated.

Then, the officer in the green shirt points his gun again. Shots six, seven, eight, nine, and ten are all fired while Pretti is lying face up on the street.

This officer fired at least four of those five shots. You can see the recoil and bullet casings eject. The other officers have all backed away by this point.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CORNISH: Now, CNN did reach out to the Department of Homeland Security for comment, and here's what a spokesperson told us: "Many of our agents have backgrounds in the military or local law enforcement, and Border Patrol agents receive extensive federal law enforcement training at federal law enforcement training centers, just as ICE officers do."

Joining me now in the group chat, Elliot Williams, CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor; Bryan Lanza, senior advisor to the 2024 Trump campaign; and Lulu Garcia-Navarro, CNN contributor and host of "The New York Times'" interview podcast.

Elliot, I want to start with you because of your experience with ICE, and also because we're looking at that kind of frame-by-frame, which I remember. Greg Bovino, you know, accused Dana Bash --

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Right.

CORNISH: --of "freeze frame adjudication."

But one of the things I heard this week from Charles Ramsey, who's a former police chief, is every bullet counts. And there is an investigation into each one of those bullets. Can you talk about what you saw in this video?

WILLIAMS: Right. There's an investigation to each one of those bullets. And moreover, the fact that there are two different officers opening fire does open questions as to, OK, let's just pretend for a moment that the first shot is justified. Right? Well, just -- just for purpose of discussion.

Why, then, the second, third, fourth, fifth, then sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth that potentially came from two different people? And whether it's a question of proper training, whether it's a question of exceedingly poor judgment, or whether it's a question of actually violating the law, is something that ought to play out in a federal investigation.

That's why it's incumbent upon ICE and DHS to make sure that, No. 1, they cooperate with the state as the state is doing its own investigation, but that also they have an open and transparent investigation into what happened here.

CORNISH: One of the things that's interesting about this moment is there was also new video of Alex Pretti that came out in the many days before this incident that showed him kicking in a taillight.

And when I'm watching other media talk about this, it reflects something the president said. The president tweeted, "Agitator, perhaps insurrectionist? Alex Pretti's stock has gone way down."

And the perception is he wasn't so innocent. Can you talk about this messaging? What is the goal when you tell the public, well, look, this guy wasn't as nice as you say. He was antagonizing people.

BRYAN LANZA, SENIOR ADVISOR TO TRUMP'S 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: Listen, it's to flood the zone. It's to muddy the waters. Right?

Right now, there's this image of -- of Pretti that you see, you know, helping a woman up, you know, getting shot. Those are -- images are bad. So, what the administration is doing in this moment of crisis, they're

showing complete -- they're showing additional footage to now muddy the waters.

Because if you look at that video that was released from a couple of weeks ago, you know, it shows a violent interaction. It shows him spitting at off -- at officers, which I believe is a crime. It shows him vandalizing. It shows him kicking the car of a police of these vehicles, of this government issue vehicles, which is another crime.

So, you know, they want to muddy the waters. And I think they're going to successfully do it, because video is video.

CORNISH: You think even after this, after people start to see something like this --

LANZA: I think -- well, this image is jarring.

CORNISH: -- that somehow being like, hey? Like, if anything, the question is raised for me, if he kicked in a whole taillight, and he walked away still alive --

LANZA: Yes.

CORNISH: -- what's the excuse here?

LANZA: No, listen, this image is jarring. It's going to have a huge impact. Frame by frame, it's very jarring. But to a -- to a small portion of the base, that's going to say, hey, listen, this guy wasn't so clean.

CORNISH: Yes. OK.

LANZA: This guy -- not saying he deserved it, but he wasn't so clean.

CORNISH: It sounds like they're saying he deserved it. But yes.

LANZA: That's what the base is looking at.

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes, I interviewed, actually, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey yesterday. And I talked to him about the Petti [SIC] video that showed him kicking in the taillight.

And his basic premise was, does that mean he deserved to be shot ten times in the head? And those are two different interactions, right?

[06:10:02]

You can argue that, yes, he should have been arrested, but he wasn't. That doesn't mean he should be shot ten times.

So -- so are we now saying in this country that you deserve to die if you have a violent interaction with law enforcement two weeks before you get shot? I don't think any reasonable person would -- would say that. WILLIAMS: Yes. And it -- it just bears mentioning and mentioning every

time this debate comes up. Those officers had -- we believe, had no knowledge of that interaction at the time they decided to shoot him.

So, no matter what -- he could have -- could have been a homicide the week before. Right? Something truly awful, a crime truly awful. If they weren't aware of it and still used what could be seen as excessive force, you know --

CORNISH: Yes.

WILLIAMS: One doesn't have anything to do with the other.

CORNISH: And in the meantime, I just want to show you guys the most recent polling.

I tend to care about independent voters. That's my bugaboo. And this is "Is ICE being too aggressive?" Among independent voters, in July of last year, that number was 49 percent. Now, it's 71 percent.

Similarly, "Do you think ICE is being too aggressive in its efforts?" And we have this one from January 23rd. Too aggressive, 59 percent; about right, 24 percent; not enough, 17 percent.

And I think the more that number creeps up from independents, the more this conversation is going to shift.

I want you guys to stay with me. We're going to talk a lot this hour about this story. But coming up, we're going to talk about the funding over Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Is the Senate going to strike a deal on this before midnight?

Plus, he wasn't asleep. Why President Trump says he, you know, just had to close his eyes.

And a nationwide strike now underway. Will we see an effective general strike here in the U.S.?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can you imagine how the people feel who are getting stolen? It's scary. It's scary. So, I think we can all inconvenience ourselves a little bit for one day. OK?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:16:34]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCHUMER: Until ICE is properly reigned in and overhauled, the DHS funding bill doesn't have the votes to pass the Senate. Let me say that again so the White House hears it.

Until ICE is properly reined in and overhauled, legislatively, the DHS funding bill doesn't have the votes to pass the Senate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: The Senate heads back to work this morning. They are racing to avoid a partial government shutdown, as funding is set to expire at midnight. And DHS funding is the thing that's holding this up.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer had the approval of President Trump on a deal that would have kept most of the government open through September. It also bought more time to negotiate this DHS funding while they were discussing reforms to ICE.

But as the vote got closer, Republicans led by Lindsey Graham threw a wrench in the plans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): Every federal agency can be improved, but I'm not going to try to make reforms with a gun at my head.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): Do not expect me to agree to some of these demands, and the Democrats continue to insist that the root cause, sanctuary city policies, stay in place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: OK, so now a revised package is in the works, and that aims to split DHS funding away from the other agencies. But that would need approval from the House. They're not even in session.

The group chat is back, because this is where the rubber meets the road. Earlier, our first conversation is what do people think. Now, it's lawmakers having their chance.

And just for some context, I want to go over with you, Elliot. The demands they have for ICE, what Democrats are hoping to get out of this in the next couple of weeks.

They want officers to wear body cameras. They don't want them wearing masks. They want to end these kind of roving patrols that don't have a particular target.

They want to tighten the parameters on warrants, especially in light of the conversation about administrative versus judicial warrants. And they want an actual code of conduct.

So, the question is, can that be negotiated, right, in a budget conversation?

WILLIAMS: Absolutely. The whole point of budget conversations is to obviously fund agencies. But explain; give guidance to agencies as to how they ought to spend Congress's money.

Now, certainly, any one of those things can be negotiated. Now, they're kind of vague. "No masks" is a vague, almost slogan. But of course, you could say that, you know, whenever agents are in the field, they ought to identify themselves. They ought to be wearing branding. They ought to make every effort to show their faces to the people, you know.

CORNISH: Yes. And I mean, I have to admit, slightly poor choice of words there, hearing John Kennedy said he didn't want to negotiate with a gun to his head.

LANZA: It's not the right time. But listen, I think going back to this debate on the budget, I think some reforms are possible. I agree with cameras.

But the -- but there's some that are just completely poison pills, done to make sure that the ball doesn't move forward. I think the third item there, the fourth item was that one. It was a very specific policy change. The administrative stuff.

CORNISH: OK.

LANZA: That is a very specific policy change that this administration is doing to expedite the deportation of illegal aliens. And that is a significant policy change. And I would call it a poison pill. It shows how unserious --

CORNISH: Yes.

LANZA: -- the Democrats really are in negotiating.

WILLIAMS: I would just say body cameras are a fight that has gone on, you know, for 20 years in the federal government. And the federal government doesn't mandate body cameras for -- for any agency, really.

And they can. I have an op-ed about it back in 2021 about the DEA having body cameras. And so, it's good policy and good for everybody, officers and people.

[06:20:08]

CORNISH: Let me bring Lulu in for a second. Amy Klobuchar, senator, basically, you know, explained. She -- she's a running for Minnesota governor. But she's like, look, we're seeing the White House give. This is our opportunity to make these kinds of requests. Here's what she had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): I really do believe that this has been a sea change that we were able to -- the Democratic leadership was able to separate out the ICE funding bill from the other parts of the funding. And that there is an opportunity, in the next two weeks, to negotiate an overhaul to this agency.

An overhaul is more than needed. They have too much money. They are -- They should stop conducting these surges.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Do you think they have the opportunity?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I think they feel they do. Listen, in the previous section, we saw the polling that shows that the wind is at their back.

CORNISH: Yes.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: The American public feel at this point that the administration has lost the argument on this. And Democrats, their base is saying, we want you to do something.

CORNISH: Yes.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: So, you know, I think this is a fight that they feel is worth having. And they have now, you know, come up to the line the first time; crossed the line. We went through a government shutdown.

I think at this point, what I'm hearing from Capitol Hill is that they feel like, you know, they really want to have this fight and bring it to the administration.

CORNISH: Before I let you guys go, though, can I just show you the budget for ICE? When we say ICE has a lot of money, 2024 here -- here it is: 9 billion.

And here we are now, 85 billion. That's going to be going out over the next couple of years.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: It's a crazy amount of money.

LANZA: But -- but hold on a second. I would add that is because we had an open border policy that brought in millions and millions of illegal aliens.

CORNISH: Wait a second. So, you think the budget for ICE, which is currently, I think, bigger than Canada spends on its military? You see that big red block and think, not enough?

LANZA: No, I'm not saying not enough. I'm saying that's sufficient to get rid of all the illegal aliens that came into the United States during the last four years.

WILLIAMS: Just by way of comparison, when I was at ICE, it was between 6 and $7 billion. And that doesn't feel like it was that long ago.

CORNISH: That's because you weren't doing your job. That's what Bryan Lindsey is saying.

WILLIAMS: But at that point, the agency was removing more people than had ever been removed in the history of the United States.

Now, look, I get the fact that the president ran on this issue. But look, in Minneapolis, at what's happening. And to Lulu's point, look at the polling. That's not working. Yes.

CORNISH: Yes. WILLIAMS: You know, you can blame the Biden administration for all their failures with respect to immigration, but -- but something is not working.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: They're looking at spending money. They -- they have all this money. And they're just hiring people, untrained, putting them out into the streets of American cities. And they're searching for, you know, a problem that, you know, isn't actually there.

CORNISH: Well, we're talking about all this, because once you have a number that big, Congress oversees it.

LANZA: Oh, yes.

CORNISH: And it's not no-strings-attached. So, we're going to see what lawmakers do over the next couple of days.

In the meantime, coming up on CNN, the president is ready to announce his pick to chair the Federal Reserve. So, is this one more likely to bow to his pressure?

And in the meantime, "Melania," the cinematic experience. We're going to talk about the first lady's new movie, which is out in theaters now.

And good morning to Virginia Beach.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:27:49]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MELANIA TRUMP, FIRST LADY: It's -- it's beautiful. It's emotional. It's fashionable. It's cinematic. And I'm very proud of it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: So, the first lady's new documentary is out in theaters nationwide today. She's promising a cinematic experience.

Last night, the Trumps attended the premiere at the Kennedy Center. And before it airs in a single theater, the movie has already been a monetary success for the first lady.

"The Wall Street Journal" reports she pocketed $28 million from the $40 million Amazon MGM Studios paid for to produce it. Now, when asked about that fee, the president said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

D. TRUMP: I don't know. I mean, I don't know, really. I'm not involved in that. That was done with my wife.

I think it's going to be -- I think it's a very important movie. I think it's really going to be very important. It shows life in the White House. It's a big deal, actually.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Joining me now, Segun Oduolowu. He's an entertainment journalist and TV host. Thank you so much for being here, Segun.

SEGUN ODUOLOWU: I'm happy to be here, Audie.

You said it at the top. The money is what you have to follow. Pocketing $27 million for a documentary is unheard of here in Hollywood. It was bought for 40 million. Also, a record number. Usually, documentaries sell for 250,000 to 750,000. Big-budget screen scripts sometimes go for as high as 5 million.

CORNISH: But Segun, can I jump in?

ODUOLOWU: For a $40 million documentary --

CORNISH: Most documentaries don't have a subject --

ODUOLOWU: Jump in.

CORNISH: -- like Melania Trump, right? It's a big deal to get her. So, is it really unusual, especially in the era of so many glossy docs where the subject is involved? Is this --

ODUOLOWU: It's -- it -- yes. Yes, it is. The word you use is correct, "unusual." And it screams payoff.

Because Jeff Bezos and Amazon paid 40 million for this. Thirty-five million was spent in advertising for a movie projected to bring back 1 to 2 million in its opening week. No one in Hollywood does that kind of math.

CORNISH: People are actually paying attention at early box office, so to speak. We had CNN's Harry Enten taking a look at the financials. And then here was his forecast for potential opening weekend returns.