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Trump Insiders Acknowledge Public Turning On Deportation Tactics; Trump On Defense As Even Allies Criticize Minnesota Operation; Rubio Defends Operation To Seize Maduro To Congress; Hawley: You Can Disagree And Protest, But You Can't Assault Someone. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired January 28, 2026 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Changing tune, pointing fingers. Tensions spike inside the White House as the politics shift on immigration.

I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.

It's not every day that President Trump tries to turn down the political temperature. Never mind tacitly acknowledged a policy -- a signature policy, mind you, isn't working. There's broad recognition inside the White House, from the top, that the public is quickly turning on the administration's mass deportation operation.

But that was happening even before Alex Pretti was shot and killed by border patrol on Saturday. And it's about the policy, not the optics. The policy of deporting criminals is popular. The policy of deporting broadly in order to make arbitrary numbers coming from the White House is not.

I spoke with a source familiar with immigration operations this morning who put it this way. Quote, the pressure from the White House to meet quotas has meant that this has gone from targeted operations to get the worst of the worst, which is an 80/20 issue, to an operation to get everyone which is a 20/80 issue.

I'm joined by a terrific group of reporters here today. David, where are we right now in this?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR & WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: Well, I totally agree with your noting the president's rhetorical shift. I was really taken in -- his interview with Fox News yesterday, where he talked about, as he normally does, how wonderful the first term was, and the second term is even better, and it blows it away. And then he added, the only thing we have is this Minnesota situation and I think that gets easily resolved.

And it was just interesting to hear him, it sort of put the Minnesota situation in a category of negative on his own assessment of what is going on right now and that that needs fixing. And we just don't normally hear the president speak that way. And so, to hear him make that acknowledgement. Now, obviously, nothing is permanent with Donald Trump. I'm not suggesting, you know, he's out bashing Mayor Frey again this morning on social media. But I do think there's not just a private, but a public recognition that he is making that adjustment is needed in some fashion.

BASH: Let's listen to a little bit more from his interview on Fox News.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We have Tom Homan there now. We put him in there. He's great. And they met with the governor, the mayor, everybody else, and we'll -- we're going to deescalate a little bit. I don't think it's a pullback. It's a little bit of a change. Everybody in this room that has a business, you know, you make little changes. You know, Bovino is very good, but he's a pretty out there kind of a guy. And in some cases, that's good. Maybe it wasn't good here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: What are you hearing from your sources at the White House, Tyler?

TYLER PAGER, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: I mean, my sources at the White House are making clear, regardless of the rhetorical shifts, the policy on the ground is not changing all that much, if at all. You know, there is this public relations campaign to put it, in that way, where Trump is using different language than we saw from Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller over the weekend.

But at the same time, he's not pulling back agents as Democratic leaders in Minnesota have requested from Minneapolis. We've talked to people familiar with the immigration statistics, and roughly a hundred undocumented immigrants were arrested on Monday in Minneapolis.

So, I think it's import -- and also, we're seeing agents in Arizona, agents in Maine. Susan Collins, a Republican senator, said she called Kristi Noem and said, I want to pause on the immigration enforcement, not just in her home state of Maine, but also in Minnesota. So, I think it's notable that we're seeing Trump shift his rhetoric, and it's clear that he's frustrated by the coverage. But in terms of policy, in terms of changing, what's happening on the ground, we're seeing very little evidence of real change.

BASH: That is so important, Tyler, because that is the question about the policy. And when we say policy, it's the surge of law enforcement, whether it's border patrol or ICE on the ground in these cities.

And then it is the question of who they are going after, which gets back to where I started on this program, whether or not they are going to, as Governor Walz insist that Tom Homan told him yesterday, they're going to sort of take their foot off the gas a little bit on rounding up everybody, which Stephen Miller wants, because he's got these quotas that he tries to get to every day, or whether or not they're going to just try to get the worst of the worst. It sounds like.

[12:05:00]

PAGER: Well, Dana, I think what your source told you is exactly right, that there's an intense pressure campaign from people in the administration led by Stephen Miller to hit these quotas. And they have not even been hitting these quotas before some of these enhanced immigration operations --

BASH: We're talking about thousands a day.

PAGER: Totally. And so, until we see a change in the actual policy, and Tom Homan is someone that has advocated for just going after criminals. He has not been an advocate as much of the sort of sweeping raids that we've seen really convulsing cities across the country. But at the end of the day, Stephen Miller is really the architect of this immigration agenda, and when he is pushing the department every day for quotas, that is what's driving the policy.

BASH: And on Stephen Miller, Tia, I want to just read you what he said yesterday, and this is about Minnesota and kind of what happened on Saturday. The White House provided clear guidance to DHS that the extra personnel that had been sent to Minnesota for force protection should be used for conducting fugitive operations to create a physical barrier between the arrest teams and the disruptors. We are evaluating why CBP team may not have been following that protocol.

Now, does that mean that he is saying that the quotas that he has set, the policy that we have been talking about, is going to change? No. But to hear Stephen Miller have any form of Mea Culpa (Ph) at all, the guy who released a statement on Saturday calling Alex Pretti an assassin before knowing the facts, is notable in that it tells you where people in the White House understand the politics are here.

TIA MITCHELL, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION: Yeah. And it seemed a little bit of self-preservation. You know, a lot of people interpreted that as him throwing Kristi Noem under the bus a little bit, maybe throwing whoever is in charge of the border patrol in Minneapolis under the bus a little bit, trying to say, hey, we were just going off of what they told us.

Now that I know it to be different. I have questions. But the question back to what we were talking about with the enforcement policy, goes back to the reality that the vast majority of immigrants are not accused of other crimes, right? They are trying to seek asylum. They are searching for a better life, even if or maybe their only crime is entering illegally.

So, the question is, if the Trump administration just wants to get out violent criminals, which is kind of how it was sold during the election, there aren't as many immigrants who meet that criteria. So then where do you go? And that's kind of what created the problems in Minneapolis.

BASH: That's exactly right. I want to play some new sound that we have from Manu talking with Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who is now retiring and has been very outspoken about his concern, about what's happening in Minneapolis.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): They're discrediting what I consider to be a very well-organized operation in ICE, but they're discrediting even these officers, they're going to make their job more difficult and more dangerous with this incompetence that I'm seeing out of nomen, out of Stephen Miller.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Did president called you a loser, I believe?

TILLIS: I am thrilled about that. That makes me qualified to be homeland security secretary and senior adviser to the president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Yikes. David?

CHALIAN: Yeah. Well, I think Manu with the right push back there, just, you know, I think everything that Tillis or Murkowski or what the administration folks would consider the usual suspects, even in their own party, say they immediately sort of dismiss.

It's not just, I mean, I understand not everyone is as vocal as that, but it's not just staying in those quarters of the Republican Party of concern being expressed about Noem's leadership, about the policy itself, about how the administration has responded to these horrific incidents. So, it's -- we all know, like we all talk to, its much broader than that even if given the politics of the party, the Tillis of the world or the Murkowski are the most vocal.

PAGER: I mean, we even saw Texas Governor Greg Abbott express some concern about it, and that shows you how far this has really reached, throughout the -- even some of Trump's most loyal allies.

BASH: All right, everybody standby. Don't miss CNN's town hall tonight. State of emergency confronting the crisis in Minnesota. It is going to happen from Minneapolis. It will be on CNN and streaming on the CNN app. That's at 8 pm eastern. Coming up, a scary moment for Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. It's the second time in less than a week, a Democratic member of Congress was assaulted.

[12:00:00]

And President Trump says he's running Venezuela. What's the administration's plan? Secretary of State Marco Rubio is on Capitol Hill right now, trying to answer those questions that the senators are posing to him.

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BASH: Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, is in front of Congress for the first time since the U.S. military took Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro from his home on a military base in Caracas, which, believe it or not, this only happened three and a half weeks ago. Rubio defended the operation to skeptical Democratic senators.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARCO RUBIO, SECRETARY OF STATE: None of the things we're talking about now, not the release of political prisoners, not the transition of the oil industry to a legitimate oil industry, not the erosion of Iranian, Russian or Chinese influence, none of these things would have been possible as long as Maduro was there. And so, this was one option that was available to the president after exhausting every other option to remove this individual from the scene.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: And my smart panel is back. Tia, it's hard to believe it wasn't even a month ago that this Venezuela operation happened.

MITCHELL: Right. And it shows the overwhelm that comes with the Trump presidency, because so much has happened in the months since that, you know, Venezuela seems like a distant memory. I think we shouldn't forget also that what preceded the removal of Maduro was the repeated bombings on boats and ships in the ocean that we still don't know exactly who was killed and the justifications for that.

We're now talking about Iran. We're talking about Cuba. And again, we're talking about ICE raids in Minneapolis. So, there's a lot of overwhelm there, but when it comes to Venezuela, I still think the American public, a month later, doesn't have a lot of answers. We saw that from the senators at the hearing, they're still looking for answers as to what the justifications were and what comes next.

BASH: Yeah, and exactly. It's the, what comes next that there was a lot of back and forth on Tyler about, not only how this oil operation is going to work, who's going to do it, who's going to protect it. But also, I don't know, like democracy, and if that is even a possibility, given the fact that number of senators made very clear that Delcy Rodriguez is the Maduro regime.

PAGER: Yeah. I mean, we -- there are, as you said, there's a lot of questions about this. I had an interview with President Trump two weeks ago and pressed him on how long the U.S. would be as he says, running Venezuela, and he said he suggested to be more than a year. So, this timeline is quite long, but it's very clear that senators on Capitol Hill are impatient with the lack of clarity and the lack of detail about what it means for the United States to have this sort of guardianship over Venezuela.

And we're starting to see signs in Venezuela that the leadership there is not all that pleased with the relationship they have. Delcy Rodriguez has made comments saying, suggesting that she is frustrated and fed up with some of the demands from the U.S., and so, the situation is very precarious. Obviously, there's a lot of attention on what's going on domestically, but I think the American public could see more fireworks in the region. As Tia said -- as they've made very clear, they're interested in the future of the regime in Cuba. And it's very unclear what the United States' relationship with Venezuela is going to be moving forward. And Trump has made a lot of promises about economic prosperity, not just for Americans, but for Venezuelans, and it's unclear how they're going to follow through on that.

CHALIAN: And since the Maduro operation, the public opinion, I mean, one of the reasons I think the senators are a little impatient to figure out the what's next in terms of transitioning to an election or some kind of self-governance going forward, is because that's where the American people are the support to get rid of the dictator was clear in all of the polling after the operation.

What is also clear is that the American people are very skeptical of American involvement. That kind of long-term involvement that the president talked to you about, that does not sit well with the American people.

BASH: It was only last week that the president walked back his saber rattling on Greenland. And the way that he did it while in Switzerland caused some problems with NATO allies because he -- the president claimed that NATO has never helped the U.S., not true. He basically, sort of apologized, and say, sorry or apology. But we knew what he was doing to the leader of Great Britain.

Jeanne Shaheen, who is the top Democrat on this committee, went back and forth with Secretary Rubio on this issue.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JEANNE SHAHEEN (D-NH): To the extent to which that unity is undermined, like the talk about Greenland and antagonizing Denmark, then it undermines NATO's ability. And the only people who are excited about that are Vladimir Putin and President Xi.

RUBIO: Yeah. Well, I would say that I think our alliances in NATO ultimately are something that's going to work out. Our partners understand the importance of the U.S. presence in NATO. Without the U.S. there is no NATO. And we understand that in order for NATO to be stronger, our partners need to be stronger.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MITCHELL: I just want to say, like, I think it's -- Marco Rubio is in an interesting position, because he is seen as a serious knowledgeable person on these matters. Clearly, he has a great connection with his fellow senators, but he also is being put in the position of trying to make sense out of things that I think Marco Rubio truly knows are not the best decisions when it comes to how we treat our NATO allies. How we handle foreign policy overall.

[12:20:00]

And so, he's having to explain and sanitize the Trump approach to these things. And it's so interesting to watch him do that, and he's doing really well at it, but I think deep down inside, there's still that disconnect that I think senators see, and Marco Rubio knows he's trying to talk around, which is the justification for doing things that really jeopardized our long standing relationships with allies.

BASH: You know, it's so interesting. You're right. There's so much unspoken in the atmosphere in that hearing room. You can kind of feel it coming through the screen because he was not that long ago, one of them, he was confirmed by, I think, unanimously, by all, all senators.

All right, up next. Security concerns inflamed after a second lawmaker attacked this week. The stunning moment at Congresswoman Ilhan Omar's town hall.

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[12:25:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: Right now, a 55-year-old man faces third degree assault charges after spraying Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar with an unknown substance at her town hall. Here is how it unfolded.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ILHAN OMAR (D-MN): And DHS Secretary Kristi Noem must resign or face impeachment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Congresswoman Omar was not injured and continued speaking, but it is the second attack on a Democrat in a week, and its inflaming concerns about security for all lawmakers. CNN's Manu Raju is on Capitol Hill. And Manu, we've heard for years, lawmakers pushing for more personal security funding.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. And it's increased the number of threats that members on both sides of the aisle have been facing over the last several years. In fact, the U.S. Capitol Police just said yesterday that they investigated nearly 15,000 concerning statements against members of Congress, their family, other people associated with them, including their staff.

That is an increase of 57 percent up from 9400 or so in 2024, just a dramatic increase in what the lawmakers are experiencing on Capitol Hill, which is why they have been pushing for more security funding. In fact, in a law that was passed last year that they increased member security funding as part of it that came in the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk murder that happened last summer.

Now this also comes as Ilhan Omar, of course, has been the subject of furious attacks from President Trump himself. Trump was asked by ABC News about the -- what we saw this alleged assault on Ilhan Omar, and he suggested that it might have been staged somehow. I put that question to Senator Josh Hawley, one of President Trump's allies, about what he witnessed with Ilhan Omar and the president's response. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOSH HAWLEY (R-MO): You can dislike his positions. You can be vocal about that. You want to protest somebody? That's fine, have at it. But disrupting their meetings, their rallies, their town halls, and assaulting them like that's, I mean --

RAJU: The president came out and said that he thought this was staged, the Ilhan Omar attack. Are you OK with him saying that?

HAWLEY: I have no knowledge about that one, way or the other.

RAJU: But should he be saying that?

HAWLEY: Well, I don't even know what he meant by him on this the first time, but I will just say this. I think we need to be real clear that, as I just said, you could disagree with somebody, and if you want to go to somebody's event, listen, I have protesters of my events all the time, you know, that's first amendment protected, you want to go protests.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: But Dana, despite the President's reaction to this, we were hearing much different from Republicans on Capitol Hill, really universally condemning this incident involving Ilhan Omar last night, condemning this alleged assailant going after Omar, spraying something at her, really, nobody that I've heard on Capitol Hill suggesting that this was staged in any way, much different than the president's response to all of this. Dana?

BASH: Yeah. I think what the president meant when he said it was staged is that it was staged. That's probably what he meant, obviously not a laughing matter. But thank you so much. That was very interesting to hear from Josh Hawley. Appreciate it.

And Manu, referenced specifically what the president said. He told ABC News that he hadn't seen the video and she probably had herself sprayed, knowing her, David?

CHALIAN: Yeah. I mean, Josh Hawley, there was just like a cartoon version of Republicans in the Trump era on Capitol Hill, being asked a question by Manu, and being like -- Manu who said exactly what the president said. I don't know what he meant by that. As you said, it's pretty clear what he meant by that. You know, I just want to say this security issue, this is much broader than just members of Congress. The mayors are in town this week.

I talked to a bunch of mayors, local elected officials. This is a whole new world of concern for them about their security and being in- elected office, their security for their family. It's just an entirely amped up new, scary development to be someone in public service.