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FBI Searches Georgia Elections Office In Alleged Voter Fraud Probe; Senate Intel Dem Criticizes Gabbard For Involvement In Fulton Search; Senate Democrats Block Bill To Fund Govt., Avert Shutdown; Senate Democrats Demand Restraints to ICE to Avoid Shutdown; First Lady Prepares For Multimiliion-Dollar Documentary Premiere. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired January 29, 2026 - 12:30   ET

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

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[12:34:06]

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: With the breakneck pace of the Trump administration, some stories may not get the highlights that they deserve. This is one that we're going to make sure does not go unmarked. It's what happened in Atlanta yesterday. It's so important.

FBI agents seized all of the 2020 general election ballots from Fulton County, Georgia. And this of course is the latest effort on behalf of the president to relitigate an election he lost five plus years ago. Another attempt to find fraud where so far with a lot of investigation, none has been found.

Now, the Justice Department has already sued the county for access to 2020 election records. President Trump posted about the search dozens of times last night and into this morning on social media, spreading numerous conspiracy theories and writing this, "Trump won big. Crooked election!"

[12:35:03]

Local officials are sounding the alarm when they're seeing that right there. And obviously given what they experienced for hours yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBB PITTS (D), FULTON COUNTY CHAIRMAN: These ongoing efforts are about intimidation and distraction, not facts. Once they left that facility last night in those FBI trucks, I don't know where they are now. I don't know who has them. I don't know what they're doing with them. Are they opening the boxes? Are they stuffing other ballots in there? I have no clue.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: And my panel is back now. Stephen?

STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN POLITICS SENIOR REPORTER: Well, even all of the things we've seen in this wild January, this is still pretty shocking because we're back to one of the president's obsessions about the 2020 election. We don't know exactly what the probable cause the FBI and the Justice Department put to the judge to allow them to get a warrant to do this.

I think the concern here is, yes, it's going back to 2020. But what is the government doing here? Coming from the outside, states look after elections, not the federal government. Is this something they're looking for that they can use in the 2026 election or the 2028 election to interfere in the administration of the election in Georgia?

And we've seen them looking for voter rolls in Minnesota as well. So I think this is raising all sorts of alarm bells, not just about what happened 2020, but what does it mean for the fair administration of elections going forward?

BASH: Yes. And it's a good point. And just with all of that's going on, I just want to emphasize that the president spent so much time on social media again last night and this morning, not only putting up what I just showed you, but reposting very lengthy statements, claims, conspiracy theories by kind of randos, if you will.

I'm not even going to sort of go through all of this because it's going to give me a headache. But the president posted or reposted a convoluted theory that alleges Barack Obama funneled hundreds of millions of dollars of cash intended for Iran through the UAE to Switzerland, to Italy, to get the CIA to use an operation coordinated by China. And that's how all of this happened. And he lost the election in Georgia.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Perhaps.

BASH: This is one of the reasons why he also sent his Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, to Georgia. I mean, that's one of the many OMG parts of this situation. Nobody knows why she is really there, including the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee who was not happy about it.

Mark Warner said this morning, "Either director Gabbard believes there was a legitimate foreign intelligence nexus in which case she is in clear violation of her obligation under the law to keep the intelligence committees fully and currently informed of relevant national security concerns, or she is once again demonstrating her utter lack of fitness for the office."

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, basically, Mark Warner is arguing if you have information, you would have come and talked to us. I am the top Democrat on Intel and I would know about it, right? Clearly --

BASH: Right.

FOX: -- his point is he doesn't think that that is actually what occurred. What he thinks is what is occurring is the fact that she is going out there and doing the president's bidding to stay in his good graces. And there have obviously been times over the course of the last year in which she fell out of the good graces. And it's just his behooved everyone in his administration to try to impress upon him that at all points they are standing up for the president.

Now, you saw with Kristi Noem last weekend that getting ahead of the president can become problematic for you as well. But I just -- I think it's so important to emphasize that if there was an actual national intelligence issue related to the election, the Intelligence Committee would be informed of that and would be taking it seriously.

BASH: Yes. And as you're talking and thinking about that, and also what you mentioned about the voter rolls going forward, I mean, it sounds like they seized the 2020 ballots, but Georgia is one of the few red states who has said to the DOJ, we're not giving you our voter rolls for the future. And there are lawsuits now for not necessarily Georgia, but other states, mostly blue states.

All right, everybody stand by. A looming government shutdown and a list of Democratic demands. I'm going to speak to California Senator Alex Padilla on what comes next in the fight over ICE funding.

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[12:44:19]

BASH: Moments ago, the Senate blocked a massive spending bill as talks continue to try to avoid a partial government shutdown. That's set to start in 36 hours. Democratic senators are making their list of demands for DHS funding clear. Before they agree to fund ICE, Democrats want the agency to tighten the use of warrants and roving patrols, remove masks and require body cameras.

So what's going on as we speak? Senator Alex Padilla is joining me now from Capitol Hill. Hi, Senator. Thank you so much for being here. Where do the negotiations with Republicans stand right now?

SEN. ALEX PADILLA (D), CALIFORNIA: So, hi, Dana. Thanks for having me back. And look, they're ongoing. And as you can imagine, in any situation like this, there's the parallel conversations of process procedure.

[12:45:04]

This bill that's sent to us by the House just went down, didn't have even the majority of votes. And so that opens the door for separating the Homeland Security bill from the rest. That's really the focus -- Homeland Security funding.

We cannot in good conscience give this Trump out of control, militarized Department of Homeland Security any additional resources until we put some of these accountability measures in place. And in your chart, you know, we're not asking for anything crazy. This is actually standard practice in most state and local law enforcement agencies.

We're talking about the use of body cameras, officers having to identify themselves, right? No masks up, no lack of identification, no coming out of unmarked vehicles. They have to abide by judicial warrants, no roving patrols. And in the event of shootings or other excessive use of force, like we've seen in Minneapolis most recently, there have to be credible, independent investigations and accountability for officers when warranted and not, you know, go along with the rhetoric coming from the president and the vice president that these officers have complete immunity.

BASH: And --

PADILLA: That's simply not the case.

BASH: And Senator, how are you going to know, when are you going to know whether or not this is something that really can be agreed upon? Because the clock is ticking and we're obviously just talking right now about funding, because you're saying that you're going to find a way to separate out the rest of the government funding for DHS. Senator Thune, the majority leader said that talks are going in the right direction. Do you see it that way?

PADILLA: Well, I will know when we see it. And it's again coming upon Republicans to play a ball with us and negotiate some real tangible, meaningful --

BASH: But are they?

PADILLA: -- reforms. So far they are. And look, I'm talking not just to my Democratic colleagues, a number of Republicans who know we need to do something. And I think the votes are there. But, Dana, this is nothing new. This is not coming down to the last 36 hours.

You look at my home state of California, my hometown of Los Angeles, which was the test case for this ICE, CBP, DHS surge last summer. We've known that they're indiscriminate immigration enforcement operations. This mass deportation agenda has only gotten more extreme, more aggressive, more physical, more violent to the point of the shooting and the killing of two United States citizens who are demonstrating their right to be out as observers and to assist when these raids were going on.

When is enough for Republicans to stand up to Trump? How many more citizens need to die? How many more videos do they need to see before they recognize and act on --

BASH: Senator --

PADILLA: -- reigning in this DHS?

BASH: Senator, I want to ask you about something that my colleague Lauren Fox, who I know you know from covering you on Capitol Hill, was talking about here, which is -- and you mentioned this when we put up on the screen, the list of demands. It's very specific, not a hugely long list. Is this a political, tactical lesson that you and fellow Democrats have learned over the past year to ask for gettable things that you can sort of, you know, show the base that you have succeeded and been victorious on? PADILLA: No, look, I think we're focused for this moment with this leverage that we have on the spending bills. This is not a substitute for more significant policy and changes to the law that are necessary. We know we need to modernize our immigration system overall, whether it's how people may choose to try to come to the United States.

You know, how do we enforce and focus only on the dangerous, violent criminals that, you know, the Trump administration talks so much about, but that's clearly not their focus. But we know we need something in this moment to address what's happening in Minneapolis and sadly, in communities across the country, not just there.

And Dana, I can't let this interview end without making this point. What's it all for? What's it all about? When the Attorney General Bondi sent a letter to Governor Walz saying, oh, we'll remove these immigration officers from Minnesota if you meet these three demands, including hand over your voter rolls.

You put that side by side with the FBI raid in Georgia yesterday, taking 2020 election materials. Are they still trying to find 11,000 more votes in Georgia? It's based on conspiracy theory. A lot of these efforts are simply to try to rig this upcoming November election to hold on to power. We need to stand up to that.

[12:50:00]

BASH: I do want to ask you quickly about what Tom Homan, who's now in charge in Minnesota, said about ICE and CPB. He did say that they're working on a drawdown plan, but he also -- and he said that they're going to more narrowly target their deportation operations.

But he also talked about Congress and what the protesters should really be doing instead of being in Minnesota, should be protesting you all in Congress. Let's listen to that sound bite.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM HOMAN, BORDER CZAR: The people out there don't like what ICE is doing. If you want certain laws reformed, then take it up with Congress. Again, ICE is making this up. They're enforcing laws enacted by Congress and signed by resident.

If you don't like what ICE is doing, instead of protesting this building, go protest Congress.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: The point he was making was also about the people he calls agitators, and that just part of -- just part of why things have gotten out of hand is because of the clashes between people who are upset about the operations and the law enforcement who have been on the ground.

PADILLA: Yes. What seems to bother him is people who are trying to exercise the First Amendment rights. There's no conflict between, you know, bringing your perspectives and desires to Congress versus -- BASH: Yes.

PADILLA: -- you know, protesting peacefully on the streets.

BASH: In fairness, I'm just -- I don't want to put words in his mouth, but he did say that he's OK with the First Amendment, but he was talking about when things get more aggressive.

PADILLA: Yes. But will he also stand up for the Second Amendment? Will he also stand up for the Fourth Amendment? Warrantless detentions and arrests are part of the problem here. And, you know, excuse me if I take what Homan says with a grain of salt. This is a guy who was caught on tape by the FBI receiving a $50,000 bribe for future contracts.

It was welcome news when Bovino was sent home, but to be replaced by Homan, you know, that doesn't reassure me. Our monitoring is going to continue, and we're going to continue to push for true oversight and accountability for Trump's out-of-control Department of Homeland Security.

BASH: Senator Alex Padilla, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it.

PADILLA: Thank you, Dana.

BASH: And up next, a very private first lady goes public. Why Melania Trump's self-titled multimillion dollar documentary is so very unprecedented.

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[12:55:54]

BASH: The privacy curtains are parting just a little bit for a first lady known for keeping a low profile. From a White House screening to multiple Fox interviews, the New York Stock Exchange, to tonight's red carpet premiere, it's all to promote Melania Trump's self-titled, self-produced documentary debuting in theaters tomorrow.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MELANIA TRUMP, FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: They will see how I work, who I am, how I communicate with people, and they will know me a little bit more. I know they know I'm a very private person and a very selective person, what I do, what I don't do, when I talk, when I don't talk. And that's my choice, and nobody is in charge of me, and I'm not in charge of anybody else.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: CNN's Betsy Klein covers the first lady and is here at the table. What do you think? You don't know because you haven't seen it. Nobody has yet.

BETSY KLEIN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Right. There have been no screeners for reporters, so we have no idea what is in this film. But we've seen Melania Trump approach this role very, very differently compared to her first term. She's kept a very low profile, staying off the radar, few public appearances, no televised interviews, and that has all changed in the run-up to this documentary.

She appeared on Fox News three times this week as she's been promoting it. And to your point, this is wildly unprecedented for a sitting first lady to profit off of inside access to her private life. She is proving that a peek behind this curtain of her private world is a multimillion dollar commodity.

And when we think about what to expect, very important to note, she is an executive producer on this project. That means it was made with her full participation and editorial control. She is doing this all on her terms. And the business of being first lady here, it seems, can be quite lucrative.

BASH: Yes. And just on the lucrative question, this is -- we're talking about a lot of money --

KLEIN: Yes.

BASH: -- given by Amazon. Amazon paid $40 million, which is, we're told, the production cost. There's an additional $35 million in marketing. Variety also projects it maybe -- will make maybe $4 million or $5 million opening weekend.

KLEIN: Yes. So let's just set aside the question of whether this is a political calculation for Amazon to be making and assume that they believe that there is an audience here for the first lady. Since Donald Trump entered the political arena, Melania Trump has been somewhat of a Rorschach test for American political observers.

She's either a MAGA queen or she is this leader of some secret resistance. But there is enormous public curiosity about her and this Melania mystique that we've been tracking for years now. One thing that the media tour for this documentary has proven is that she is incredibly politically aligned with her husband. She is her husband's wife.

So is that going to translate to selling tickets? Amazon certainly hopes so. We'll have to see.

BASH: Just quickly, let's listen to what Melania Trump said on Fox Business this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: It feels fantastic. It's very different because you already know how the politics work and what you can accomplish. But this time, it's very different than the first time. We have much more support.

The first time, everything what you wanted to do, the answer was no, or they turned their backs. But this time, it's much more support.

(END VIDEO CLIP) JASMINE WRIGHT, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: I mean, that answer is a clear revelation that she talks to her husband a lot about what is happening in the country. Now, that first clip we saw, she said that nobody controls me and I don't control anybody. I think that was clearly talking about whether or not she controls President Trump. She's saying no.

But it's very clear that they talk about everything. You hear that from President Trump and you hear that from her. And so I -- and I'm interested in seeing how that is played out in the movie. Not just her outfits, but of course, the guidance that she's giving to Trump behind the scenes.

He's talked a little bit about it when it comes to Russia and Ukraine war, when it comes to other factions. But obviously, that's --

BASH: Yes.

WRIGHT: -- kind of a big question about how do they talk behind the scenes.

BASH: They're having a red carpet at the -- well, what was the Kennedy Center, which he renamed tonight.

KLEIN: That's right. And if you are expecting her to drop any major bombs about their relationship, I think his post about it after he saw a private screening earlier this week, says it all. It's a must watch. So don't expect any major fireworks.

BASH: Very good. Thank you all. I really appreciate it.

Thank you for joining Inside Politics. CNN News Central starts right now.