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Early Start with Rahel Solomon

ICE Agent Shoots And Kills Woman In Minneapolis; White House: U.S. Pulling Out Of Key U.N. Climate Agreement; Homeland Security Secretary: Officer Followed His Training. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired January 08, 2026 - 05:30   ET

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

[05:30:00]

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN ANCHOR: The Trump administration says that she tried to run over agents, but state and local officials are disputing claims that the shooting was in self-defense.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. GOVERNOR PEGGY FLANAGAN, (D) MINNESOTA: Renee Nicole Good should be alive. She was killed by an ICE agent and the video footage that we have seen with our own eyes was a very different story from what we're hearing from Kristi Noem and Donald Trump.

She was a mother of a 6-year-old. She had stuffed animals -- she had stuffed animals in her vehicle for her child.

This is outrageous and we all should be incredibly upset by what we witnessed today and expect so much more from leaders at the national level, like Donald Trump and Kristi Noem.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOLOMON: Now, a video taken right after the shooting shows outraged residents confronting law enforcement. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can I go check her pulse?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No! Back up, now!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm a physician.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't care.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Listen, we understand. We've got EMS coming. And I get it -- just give us a second. We have medics on scene. We have our own medics.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Where are they? Where are they?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Relax. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How can I relax? You just killed my (bleep) neighbor. You shot her in the (bleep) face. You killed my (bleep) neighbor. How do you show up to work every day? How the (bleep) do you do this every day? You're killing my neighbors. You're stealing my neighbors. What the (bleep), man?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOLOMON: The woman who recorded that video says that it took at least 15 minutes before an ambulance showed up. She says that paramedics had to carry the victim's body on foot because the street was clogged by ICE vehicles.

This is how she described the situation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EMILY HELLER, WITNESS: There was an ICE convoy that was -- that seemed to be stuck and then there was a protester who was blocking traffic, so they couldn't progress. And she was totally peaceful.

And ICE, it seemed, completely unorganized. They didn't really know what they were doing. They were screaming at her to move, move, move, and then they approached her vehicle aggressively and grabbed -- tried to open her door. And then that's when she got spooked and she reversed her vehicle to turn her wheels to try to escape. And that's when an ICE agent stepped in front of her vehicle and said, "Stop." And then -- I mean, she was already moving -- and then pointblank shot her through her windshield in the face.

I don't want to be here, but I knew that this would be twisted and it would be self-defense, and that's absolutely not what happened. But it's just -- I -- my life is forever changed from having witnessed this and I'm -- I just can't let this narrative that it was self- defense go any further because it's absolutely not what it was. And yeah, my neighborhood, my neighbors, we're all going to be pretty traumatized for -- from this for a long time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOLOMON: Earlier I spoke with former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani about the video footage we've seen of the incident, and I asked him whether the ICE agent was required to try and move out of the way of the vehicle before using force, and here's what he told me.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NEAMA RAHMANI, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Well, Rahel, there's no duty to retreat, so that's not necessary. But the question is, was this criminally reckless? If you're a law enforcement officer -- it doesn't matter if you're local police or you're a federal agent -- should you be approaching a vehicle from the front of the vehicle and putting yourself in danger's way? Now obviously, that's not an excuse or justification to accelerate into an officer. But again, does that require the use of deadly force? It appears to me what's happening here is the ICE agent wants to

prevent someone from fleeing. Well, the law is clear. You cannot shoot someone simply because they are fleeing even if they are a fleeing felon. You have to use non-lethal tactics to detain them. That's exactly what should have been done here and if so, they may have been in custody and been alive instead of the tragedy that we've all seen.

SOLOMON: And you said that you might expect to see murder charges -- perhaps a civil case in a trial like this -- in a case like this. You've been on both sides of the courtroom, Neama. What might you expect to hear as a potential defense? I mean, self-defense is already sort of out there in the ether but walk me through what you might expect to hear, especially since there appears to be so much video that we've already seen in just the last few hours.

RAHMANI: Well, there's no question we're going to see a civil lawsuit by the victim's family. That's coming.

But in terms of the criminal cases there is the possibility of federal and state charges. We know federal charges are not happening in this political climate. There is no chance that Pam Bondi and the Department of Justice charges this ICE agent. So it's going to be up to Minnesota's Attorney General Ellison or local prosecutors there to charge the agent with either murder or manslaughter. And he absolutely can be charged under state law even though he's a federal agent.

[05:35:05]

So there is really three degrees of murder under Minnesota law and there's actually two degrees of manslaughter, so it can get a little bit complicated.

But it's important to know that under both the civil and criminal cases if the self-defense is perfected -- that means if it was objective, if it was reasonable -- the jurors do believe that the agent was at the imminent risk of death or serious bodily injury -- that is a complete defense.

But if the self-defense is not perfected and jurors believe that this agent was shooting someone who was fleeing, the federal government is going to have to pay a lot of money, and this ICE agent will likely be convicted.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SOLOMON: Still ahead for us, a new move by the White House that some describe as a "get out of jail free card" for polluters.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL)

[05:40:00]

SOLOMON: Welcome back to CNN. This is your business breakout. And a quick check now on U.S. futures ahead of the opening bell on Wall Street. And between the Dow, S&P, and Nasdaq, futures all off, let's call it, two-tenths to three-tenths of a percent at about 5:40.

And checking some of today's other business headlines, Character.AI and Google have agreed to settle multiple lawsuits over teen mental health harms and suicide. One of the lawsuits accused Character.AI of not adequately responding when a teenage boy began expressing thoughts of self-harm. Both companies have since implemented a series of new safety measures and features.

The board of CNN's parent Warner Bros. Discovery has rejected the revised $30.00 a share hostile takeover bid from Paramount's Skydance. WBD says that the offer for the entire firm remains inferior to the deal that it struck with Netflix for its streaming and studio unit. It's asking shareholders to vote for the Netflix deal instead.

Trump administration officials have begun revealing their strategy for Venezuela's oil. The plan centers on selling millions of barrels of oil at market value and convincing American oil companies to make major investments in rebuilding Venezuela's energy infrastructure.

Former U.S. climate envoy John Kerry is accusing the White House of giving polluters a "get of jail free card." On Wednesday, the Trump administration said that it's pulling out of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. The U.S. adopted it in 1992. The treaty led to the landmark Paris climate agreement, which Trump abandoned for a second time last year. But it's a legal gray area whether he can unilaterally leave the 1992 agreement because it was ratified by the Senate.

For more on this let's bring in Henna Hundal, a delegate to the U.N. Climate Conferences. She's speaking to us now from Stanford, California. Hannah, good morning to you.

So what's the significance of this pullout? I mean what's the impact of this?

HENNA HUNDAL, DELEGATE TO U.N. CLIMATE CHANGE CONFERENCES: Well, good to be with you, Rahel.

You know, this was sort of expected because we know that President Trump in his first term in office said he wanted to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris agreement. When he came into office in his second term, on the very first day part of that bundle of executive actions that he issued -- one of them was again to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris agreement.

And now he's really going at it from the foundation, which is the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change's overarching umbrella treaty that actually enabled the Paris agreement in 2015. I mean, we just celebrated that 10-year anniversary last year at the U.N. Climate Conference in Brazil that I came back from.

So this is sort of a 30-year -- 30-plus-year process in the making of getting more than 190 countries to come together to cooperate on climate action, and that's what he's really eroding here. So I think the consequence or significance of this action cannot be underestimated.

SOLOMON: And I do have still some questions as I just pointed out about whether legally he can do this. But assuming that he can, talk to me about the implications for U.S. relations with allies. And does this also provide cover for perhaps some other countries and some other polluters?

HUNDAL: Absolutely. You know, it sort of provides a permission structure -- an institutionalized exit pathway. The U.S. would actually be the first country to do this and to withdraw.

And we have to remember that when you can get 190-plus countries to come together to cooperate on something like climate change over a period of decades, and then to withdraw participation from that, that really does build not a lot of goodwill. And then it can actually be very difficult to bring the U.S. back into the UNFCCC and the Paris agreement if another president in the future wanted to do that.

So it's really eroding at the foundations of global climate cooperation and really getting rid of this architecture that has been built so carefully, so thoughtfully, and really for a very important issue that is going to affect every country.

And we also know that there are countries eyeing what the U.S. is doing and seeing how they can sort of take advantage of the U.S. vacating its leadership role on climate change. We know, for example, China is watching the U.S. recommit to fossil fuels and, in turn, investing billions of dollars in renewable technologies. So we see these two great powers taking starkly different paths in terms of thinking what will be the key to really powering the future, and we've got to keep an eye on that.

And I think it's just really unfortunate to see the U.S., you know, renege on its responsibilities and its role in this regard because it is the largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases.

SOLOMON: And then what about the impact on this for the developing world and the outsize impact of this on the developing world?

HUNDAL: I think it's huge because at the conference -- at the annual U.N. Climate Change Conference there's two key pathways that need to be addressed. Mitigation, which is how do we actually decrease the affects of climate change in the here and now? And then adaptation is what do we need to do to really adapt these impacts on the ground given that some of the impacts are already here and may well be irreversible?

And so we have both of these pathways that need to be addressed. And what we're seeing is increasingly developing countries -- under- resourced communities are really having to grapple with that adaptation component because oftentimes, unfortunately, the communities that did very little to actually contribute to the problem of climate change are bearing the greatest impacts of it and really bearing the brunt. [05:45:05]

And so we've had, for example, initiatives to support funding to help adaptation in these communities and unfortunately the U.S. was sort of a lynchpin in all of that. And we're really starting to see some of that global architecture around climate cooperation crumble.

You know, when I went to the U.N. Climate Change Conference in November the U.S. didn't actually send an official delegation. And so we saw Governor Gavin Newsom of California show up. Some individual representatives tried to sort of advocate for the U.S.' role. But ultimately, you know, you really need a federal delegation to be able to promulgate some of these measures and unfortunately, we're just not getting that under the Trump administration.

SOLOMON: Henna Hundal, we appreciate you being up with us early this morning. Thank you.

HUNDAL: Thank you -- appreciate it.

SOLOMON: Yeah.

All right. Still ahead, conflicting accounts emerge after a deadly shooting by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. More on what local and federal officials are saying when our breaking news coverage continues straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL)

[05:50:20]

SOLOMON: Welcome back. I'm Rahel Solomon. And here are some of the stories we are watching for you today.

Protesters in Minneapolis are calling for the arrest of an ICE officer who shot and killed a U.S. citizen. Renee Nicole Good appeared to be trying to drive away as agents approached her vehicle. One officer opened fire in what Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called self-defense.

The U.S. Senate is expected to vote today on a measure that would limit President Trump's war powers in Venezuela. The resolution requires Trump to seek congressional authorization to engage in hostilities against the South American country.

Two people were killed in a shooting outside a Mormon church in Salt Lake City. It happened in the parking lot of a funeral that was taking place indoors. Six people were also injured in the shooting. Police say that the shooting did not appear to be targeted against a religion or anything similar, or a random attack. They say they're still searching for the suspects.

Let's get more now on that deadly shooting in Minneapolis. CNN's Priscilla Alvarez is following all of the developments from Washington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A woman was shot and killed in Minneapolis by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer on Wednesday.

Now, the Department of Homeland Security secretary holding a press conference in Minneapolis, returning there after being in the area the previous day, and saying that the officer had followed his training.

The secretary saying that in the moment of this targeted operation, a federal vehicle had gotten stuck and that there were protesters that were harassing and impeding officers. And that eventually this led to the federal law enforcement approaching one of these vehicles with this woman inside and as she drove off the officer was bumped and he shot at her.

Now earlier in the day, we also heard from local law enforcement who said, again, that federal law enforcement approached her and she was shot as she drove off.

The incident as a whole has raised a lot of questions, especially as to whether deadly use of force was justified in this incident.

Now it's also drawn the ire of local officials who say that Immigration and Customs Enforcement should leave the city, and have also called the recollection of events by the Department of Homeland Security, essentially B.S.

Now again, the Department of Homeland Security is standing by the officer who they say -- or described as "experienced." They also say that he, too, went to the hospital and has since been released and will be with family.

The Trump administration standing with the federal agency at the core of this - again, Immigrant and Customs Enforcement, which has launched a massive immigration enforcement operation in the Minneapolis area.

But again, questions still remain as to exactly all of the bits that unfolded here in this incident that led to the death of U.S. citizen -- a woman, 37 years old -- that the FBI, according to the Department of Homeland Security, is going to continue investigating.

Priscilla Alvarez, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SOLOMON: All right. Still ahead, we'll have much more on that breaking news out of Minneapolis, including the growing memorial for the victim.

You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL)

[05:58:05]

SOLOMON: Welcome back.

Protesters turned out on the streets of New York to voice their anger following the deadly shooting in Minneapolis. Immigration advocates in New York organized the rally in Foley Square in response to what happened. Those who gathered held a number of signs, including one that read "The people demand ICE out of our communities."

Here is what some of the protesters had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What ICE is doing -- this -- it was just like -- today was just like the last straw. I just had to come out.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And so I think the only way that we're going to have any accountability and fight for any justice for Renee is by being out in the streets and showing that we're not going to -- we're not going to stand down and let this happen to our communities.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, we see the injustice that happened in Minneapolis and we -- and we won't stand for it. And we demand that these ICE agents are prosecuted and that they can't get away with this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOLOMON: Renee Nicole Good, the woman killed by an immigration officer in that shooting Wednesday, is being remembered as a loving mother. People in her community gathered to lay flowers near where she was shot.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This young lady did not deserve to be killed. And we are heartbroken at what's taking place in our city and here in Minneapolis.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I showed up with my friend here who brought the flowers -- to give flowers to honor her and to honor all of us in struggle and honor all of us who are resisting.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. Trump, come to Minnesota. We invite you to come here. Where is the terrorist? Is it here in the United States in this government or where it is in -- outside the United States? I think today what happened in here is unacceptable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[06:00:00]

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