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The Situation Room

Trump Holds Cabinet Meeting; FBI Raids Georgia Election Office. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired January 29, 2026 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:00]

ROBB PITTS, CHAIRMAN, FULTON COUNTY, GEORGIA, BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS: Once they left Fulton County, our election center, I don't know where they are. I don't know who has them. I don't know what they're doing with them.

We can no longer be held responsible for those ballots and other data that was seized yesterday. But what I'm hoping, that we will stand together to ensure that no data is ever weaponized.

Poll worker protection. After the 2020 elections, Fulton County poll workers endured brutal and targeted harassment. And it is imperative that data from the 2020 election not be used to further harass our poll workers, who have already endured so much.

Fast-forward, this year, 2026 elections. This week's activities show that Fulton County is still much a target. And I'm told that I am personally a target. I'm a big boy. Now, while we have grown accustomed to name-calling and rhetoric, we will not give one inch to those who seek to take control of our elections.

Now, hear what I just said. We will not give one inch to those who seek to take control of elections in Fulton County, not today, not tomorrow, not ever. We're going to fight this in court with every resource that we have. And, again, I'm very grateful to the support that is coming to us from around the country.

Time and time again, the law has been on our side. And the greatest legal minds in the country agree it will be once again. I want to thank the local and national legal communities for their overwhelming support to us in this moment in the history of Fulton County, Georgia.

Thank you.

SHERRI ALLEN, CHAIR, FULTON COUNTY, GEORGIA, BOARD OF REGISTRATION AND ELECTIONS: I just want to say that Fulton County's Department of Registration and Elections has continued and will continue to maintain efficient, transparent, and accurate elections and election results.

Our duty is to the voters and to the county voters. The electorate that goes out, we do not care what their political position is. We are there to make sure that they have an efficient process, that the process is fair, that the results are accurately and transparently reported.

And that's what we will continue to do. We won't take our eye off the ball. We are continuing to continue to focus on the 2026 election and those coming up. And Fulton County will stand strong. As the chairman said, poll workers have been targeted. We sometimes have difficulty recruiting poll workers because they are concerned about being subject to abuse.

And I just want to thank the department and all of the staff that worked tirelessly yesterday until 9:00 at night and fully complied with the FBI.Even if we were surprised, we were able to efficiently comply, to discuss, and to make sure that what they were requesting, we complied with.

But do we have concerns about the process? Are we concerned about material, about voter information and what will happen to personal private information of voters? Of course we are, but that was out of our hands yesterday.

We -- like the chairman said, we will continue to be vigilant. We have a policy in Fulton County, if you see something, say something, so that voters know, when they go to the polls, that if anything goes awry, that someone will be reporting it. And we ourselves make sure that we report and tell anything that happens that's major, and we did that just a couple of months ago.

So Fulton County will remain strong. We won't take our eye off the ball. And we thank those who are supporting us and we hope that you all will continue to be vigilant and to not be subject to misinformation that may come out, because, as the chairman said, we don't know how the information will be used. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We can take a couple of questions. We will start here and then we will work our way up. Yes, go ahead.

QUESTION: Quick question. So, to that point, what sort of posture are you guys taking like on a granular level, detailing how voters can make sure that their information is safe? And how confident should voters be heading into the 2026 race that their votes are (OFF-MIKE)

ALLEN: When you say what are we -- you mean as moving forward, what do we do?

We always maintain voter maintenance roles. And in Georgia, they have where that people who may be subject to stalking and things like, that their information is safe as well. And so we try to make sure that it's not disseminated, although the public is able to get voter information.

[11:35:11]

It goes from the secretary of state in order to make sure that people's information is protected because they are in the best position to do that, not each county. And so that's what we do.

Yesterday, with all of the information going, and us not knowing exactly how it'll be used, that had voter -- private voter information in it as well.

QUESTION: Mr. Chairman, you said that this is by no means over. Can you talk about what steps Fulton County is going to take next?

PITTS: Well, I don't want to disclose what our legal strategy is, but we will be fighting with every inch of our body, with every resource that we have. We have great counsel. We have outside counsel working with her, so -- and everyone has told us that we will prevail in the final analysis.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Excuse me one second. I'm just going to grab this -- sorry.

(OFF-MIKE)

QUESTION: I have a series of questions.

My first question (OFF-MIKE) You said that you were told that you're personally a target. Do you mean you're personally a target of this criminal investigation?

PITTS: Not the criminal investigation. Because of being outspoken and because I have talked about and refuted the lies that have been told about our elections in 2020, that's why I'm on the hit list. That's probably why I was disinvited to the White House, as you will recall.

QUESTION: But -- so the DOJ has not informed you...

(CROSSTALK)

PITTS: I have not received anything yet. I have not.

QUESTION: Who do you think the target of this investigation is?

PITTS: I have no idea.

QUESTION: What do you think the likelihood is that the state election board will try to use some of the information it gathered as a pretext for taking over our Fulton County's election systems?

PITTS: I think that's a great question. And when I said -- what I said -- one of my remarks was, that's what I'm concerned about. It wasn't about yesterday. I think it's about something else that has not been revealed yet. So just stay tuned. We're ready.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (OFF-MIKE)

Richard, just shout it out.

QUESTION: Two quick questions.

Have you seen an unsealed -- have you seen yet an unsealed warrant as to who or what the target of the criminal investigation is?

PITTS: I have not.

ALLEN: No, I'm -- we saw that it is under seal, but we have not seen it.

QUESTION: We understand that it may be that Fulton County is not the target of a criminal investigation, that another entity may be, but it may encompass.

ALLEN: We have no idea. Nothing was explained to us. And it was difficult even getting a copy of the warrant.

QUESTION: Do you believe that this is part of a criminal investigation or is this part of something else we have seen in other states?

Some critics (OFF-MIKE) have said this is intimidation (OFF-MIKE)

ALLEN: I don't want to speculate, but I have heard that. And I have heard that it will not just stop here. There's an issue about voter maintenance rolls and whether or not the federal government should receive those. So I don't know.

QUESTION: There's a debate going on right now in the Georgia Senate for a resolution to urge the secretary of state to turn over Georgia's voter rolls, including Social Security (OFF-MIKE)

ALLEN: And the secretary of state has turned over what, according to the law, from what I understand, was allowable.

QUESTION: And, Director Allen, do you know exactly how many records roughly were taken yesterday or how many boxes?

ALLEN: Seven hundred boxes. And the reason I know that is because...

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: All right, we have been listening to Fulton County officials there basically raising concerns about this search from the FBI at the election office there, saying that they don't know where the voter data went. They had concerns about privacy for voters and so forth.

That continues as our Manu Raju just interviewed Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock.

What can you tell us about that interview, Manu?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, he's -- Pamela, he's very concerned about what we have seen from the FBI, the implications of all of this. Of course, he's also a Democrat. We have not heard many concerns from Republicans.

But Warnock made clear that he is worried about the broader ramifications about this raid. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RAPHAEL WARNOCK (D-GA): I'm really concerned about what happened to Fulton County yesterday.

Look, this issue has been litigated time and time again. The votes have been counted over and over again. And I agree with Democrats and Republicans that this is a settled issue.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: And, of course, Georgia is a critical state, not just in every election cycle and in recent past, but this one in particular.

[11:40:01]

He has a -- his colleague from Georgia, Jon Ossoff, is facing one of the toughest reelections of any Senate Democrat, perhaps the most vulnerable Democratic senator, given that he's the only one who represents a state that Donald Trump won in 2024, so a sign of the concern that this could have implications for future elections as well.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: All right, Manu, I'm going to have to jump in because it is a busy hour.

Now President Trump is holding his Cabinet meeting, so let's listen into that.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: ... I think quite spectacular. It's never, never looked this good.

And, hopefully, we're going to do work that's never been as good. So I think that's basically what's happened in our first year. We have had an amazing year, and this will be our first Cabinet after the year. So we're starting our second year.

Tremendous progress has been made. I want to thank my entire Cabinet for 12 months of unprecedented achievements. We really have unprecedented -- the numbers we have had on the economy and growth, you see them. And that's despite a Democrat shutdown. Without the shutdown, we would have picked up about a point-and-a-half more than already high numbers, record-setting numbers.

So this has been, I think, and a lot of people say it, the most successful year of any administration in American history, the first year. There has never been a first year like this, including the fact that we put out, extinguished eight wars. And another one, we think is coming. Steve Witkoff's working very hard and Jared and everybody else, and I think it's coming.

It was just announced that the murder rate in our country is the biggest drop ever recorded. It's at the lowest level in 125 years, first in recorded history. It's the lowest in at least 125 years. That's a wonderful thing, and that crime is way down. And one of the reasons is, we have taken a lot of bad people and

gotten them out of our country. In some cases, they're so bad that we put them in prison because we don't want them to even take a chance of coming back in, even though our border is very secure, record-setting secure.

We had zero illegal aliens being admitted into our country for the last eight months. That's hard. That's hard for even me to believe, but the people that make up the lists are supposedly nonpartisan, but I would say they'd lean toward the Democrat side. And if they say that, I'm all for it.

As you know, we have had a situation take place with respect to Venezuela. I want to just thank General Caine and his staff. The job that they have done is incredible. Nobody has ever seen anything like it. And once it did take place, I want to thank the leadership of Venezuela. We're getting along really well with them.

The relationships have been very strong, very good. And they have informed me that they feel there's very good security, very strong security. We're working with the various people involved, including Chris and Doug and everybody on the oil.

We have the major oil companies going to Venezuela now, scouting it out and picking their locations. And they will be bringing back tremendous wealth for Venezuela and for the United States. And the oil companies will do fine too. Venezuela will actually make for themselves more money than they have ever made before. And that's a good thing.

And the people of Venezuela were literally in the streets waving American flags, they were so happy. And the people in our country, like in the Doral section of Miami, which is considered Little Venezuela, they're thrilled.

And I just spoke to the president of Venezuela and informed her that we're going to be opening up all commercial airspace over Venezuela. American citizens will be very shortly able to go to Venezuela and they will be safe there. They will be safe. It's under very strong control.

And the people of -- formerly of Venezuela, some want to go back and some want to go back to visit. And they're going to be able to do that. So I have instructed Sean Duffy and everybody else concerned, including the military, that, if you would, by the end of today, I'd like you to have the airspace over Venezuela -- planes can go to Venezuela -- opened up, OK?

SEAN DUFFY, U.S. TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: Yes.

TRUMP: Thank you very much.

And I want to thank all of the people in Venezuela for what -- what they went through. And I want to thank the leadership for -- really, they're doing a good job. And just as I promised, we have defeated the Biden inflation nightmare

and achieved explosive new economic growth. The Atlanta Fed is predicting an astounding 5.4 percent GDP growth in the fourth quarter. And that's despite the fact that we had a Democrat shutdown. We would have had -- that number would have been 7 percent, which is a number nobody's ever heard of.

[11:45:07]

And we have had -- we have been given great national security because of tariffs. And we have also been given unprecedented income because of tariffs. Part of the income that we gave, $12 billion we gave to the farmers of our country, so that -- yesterday, I was up in Iowa.

And they were very happy, Madam Secretary. They were very, very happy and great. So the GDP growth in the fourth quarter was great. And it's going to be -- I think we're going to have an amazing and incredible year. Hopefully, we won't have a shutdown. We're working on that right now.

I think we're getting close. The Democrats, I don't believe, want to see it either. So we will work in a very bipartisan way, I believe, not to have a shutdown. We don't want a shutdown. And just yesterday, the S&P 500 hit 7000 for the first time ever. It's never been any time at which it's done like that.

And the other stocks also, I think it was 52 times where the Dow had hit a record high. But the 7000 was not a number that was even thinkable if you go back a year ago. And so S&P hit 7000 for the first time ever. The stock market has set -- it's actually 53, 52, 53, all- time record highs since the election, adding $9 trillion in value to savings, retirement accounts, and 401(k)s.

And, I mean, everybody benefits, but we have record, record stock markets. Companies have never done well -- and, most importantly, if you think about it, after four years in which Biden got much less than $1 trillion of investment into our country, in just -- actually, it was taken over 11 months, even though we're 12 months.

In 11 months, we have taken in more than $18 trillion. So, they did less than $1 trillion, Scott, in a period of four years. And we have done $18 trillion in less than one year. So, there's never been anything like that. No other country has done those numbers, by the way, in history; 10 years ago, one country did $3 million -- $3 trillion.

No other -- we did $18 trillion there's being invested now. Thousands of businesses, plants, equipment all over the country are being built right now. And they're going to be opening pretty soon. And when they open, you will see numbers like nobody's ever seen before.

The economy is doing amazingly well. I wish the press would report it, but people are finding out. They're seeing it. It's coming -- it's becoming pretty evident. It's hard to hide. Biden inflation, which is really stagflation, cost the typical family $34,000. Think of that, $34,000. But after one year, growth in real incomes is outpacing inflation by

more than $3,000 under Trump. So, one cost $34,000 and one made $3,000. That's a big swing. Gasoline has plunged to, think of this, over $4 a gallon, depending on where you are. In California, it's $7, $8 a gallon.

I was in Iowa, and they had $1.85, because I had it at $1.99 a gallon. And I was corrected by two farmers that said, I just bought my gasoline for $1.85. So, Chris, you have to be doing something right, you and Doug, right?

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: But I don't want to give you too much confidence. You got to keep it going.

We're drilling -- I think I can say we're drilling more than at any time ever. And we're taking out more energy out of our land. But specifically, if you look at oil and gas, we have never been anywhere even close. Is that a correct statement?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That is correct, all-time records.

TRUMP: Yes. Great. It's a great job.

Well, it's supply and demand. So, that's going down rapidly. And when energy goes down, everything else goes down. They were -- they had very -- they tried to do their thing. It was a disaster. Then they ran back very late to the Trump policy, but they didn't do the Trump policy. They cut leases.

They did everything that they could do. But they lost it. And they were very high. And we're now less than $2 in many areas, $2.30 a gallon average. Grocery prices, airfares, hotels, car payments, and rent prices are coming down very fast.

And you don't hear the word affordability issue by the Democrats anymore. Now they're going into other things, because they're getting beaten badly on affordability. Remember that, when I was elected, I came into office, I inherited a total mess, starting with eggs, which were four times higher than they were just a year before.

And Brooke got them down very quickly before Easter. I said -- they wanted me to buy plastic eggs for the egg hunt, at the very famous egg hunt at the White House. Sir, would you buy plastic eggs? And we buy a lot of, like 100,000 eggs. And I said, we're not going to buy plastic eggs.

[11:50:08]

And by the time we had the egg hunt a few months later, we had the prices down pretty good. And now they're really low. Now they're at a very low level. So we really have -- you don't hear the word affordability because we inherited very high prices and we inherited the highest inflation in 48 years. I say the history of our country. I think it sounds almost the same.

Actually, I think 48 years sounds actually worse for some reason. So I will go with the 40, because the press corrected me. I said history. And they said, it's not history. It's 48 years. I said, I will accept that.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: And we had the highest inflation in 48 years. We have now very -- as you saw yesterday with the Fed. I'm not a fan of his. He said that inflation essentially is not a factor. It's really been pretty amazing.

I just put out a statement about his statements. I won't repeat them here because they're too angry. And thanks to our tax cuts, millions of Americans will soon receive record-setting tax refunds. You're going to get a lot of tax refunds, with the average refund expected to be over $1,000 higher than it has been at any time.

So we're going to be getting some pretty good refunds, a lot of people. If congressional Democrats had their way, Americans would right now be facing the largest tax hike ever. Their proposal was to raise taxes very substantially. And our proposal, which is in the great, big, beautiful new deal -- it's a new deal in its own way. It's a Republican version of the New Deal.

Right behind you, it's a nice picture of FDR. This is a much better deal than the FDR deal. But we have the great, Big Beautiful Bill. And it's given tremendous tax cuts and a lot of other things. People are now finding out how good it is. And it's just kicked in as of January 1, by the way. So we're really -- we're really starting to see it.

Even though it's a month, we're really starting to see it. The U.S. economy would be cratering if they -- if they had won this election, our country would be in very bad shape, would be maybe not much of a country anymore. I don't think it would be a country anymore. They were doing everything wrong.

But they were going to give you the largest tax hike in history, and we're giving you the largest tax cut in history in the great, Big Beautiful Bill. In addition, I think it's very good. I think it's very important. You have no tax on overtime, no tax on tips, and no tax on Social Security.

But you also have you're getting an -- this is the first time this ever happened. If you buy a car, you go out and borrow money, you get an interest deduction. You take the interest rate, the interest that you're paying on the loan. You're able to deduct it for income tax purposes. So that's a first ever.

And I think it's going to be great for everybody, including the car companies. I was in Detroit three weeks ago. I went to the Ford factory, spoke to the General Motors people. It's all the same. They're doing better than they have ever done. The factory I went to was like a World War I,earlier than World War I factory opened up, one of the oldest buildings, but one of the biggest. And Ford was getting ready to close it a couple of years ago, and then

they saw that I was doing well and it looked like I would have a good chance of winning. And they kept it going, barely going. And last week, they announced -- during my visit, they announced that they're going to round-the-clock -- round-the-clock production.

They never thought it was -- I said, did you ever think -- I spoke with Bill Ford and the president of Ford. They were both there. And they said, we can't even believe it. We were going to close this building two years ago, and now it's going round the clock. They said, we cannot -- I mean, they wished -- they said, we wish it was twice the size.

But they're now building additional plants in the United States, as is everybody else. You have A.I. building, but the car companies, I love the car companies, and you have them. They're all coming back. They're coming back from Mexico. They're coming back from Canada. They're coming back from Japan.

And they're coming back from Germany. All over Europe, they're coming back to their building here because they want to avoid the tariffs. They don't want to pay the 15 percent, in some cases 25 percent tariff. Could be a lot higher than that if it wasn't working.

So, because of that, they're all coming back. One statistic yesterday that Scott told me is that, for the first time ever -- tell him about the steel in Japan, that we are now making more steel. Go ahead, please.

HOWARD LUTNICK, U.S. COMMERCE SECRETARY: So, yesterday, they reported, for the first time in 26 years, the United States of America produced more steel than Japan. And that is entirely driven by your tariffs.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Amazing.

[11:55:00]

TRUMP: Think of that.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: He obviously said that much better than I did, because I got no applause.

(CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: I'm giving you a home run after home run. He said...

(CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: I should've saved that one for myself. (LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: No, but think of it, first time in -- they read -- it read almost 30 years, but I guess it's, what, 26, 27 years, that we are now producing more steel than Japan, Japan being a big steel producer.

Japan and other countries really took our steel production away from us. Now, if you think of this, three, four years ago, the steel companies were all closing up. We worked a fantastic deal with U.S. Steel. We saved U.S. Steel. And now it's all coming about.

But we're -- and that's just the beginning. There are a lot of steel plants right now being built. So it's -- that's an amazing -- that's an amazing number. Nobody would have believed that. If you would have said that three, four, five years ago, people would have said it's not a -- it's not a true fact.

But -- so it has to be true, because, otherwise, you question me. You question me on everything. I have to be extremely accurate. I don't exaggerate it. I don't want to exaggerate, because you will call me. You don't call other people, but you would call me.

Under my most favored nation -- which I think is the most important thing, Bobby, of all what we have done, because we're bringing drug prices down by 80, 90 percent, depending on the way -- you could say 500, 600, 700 800 percent. Depends on the way you want to calculate it, right?

But let's go the old-fashioned way, but drug prices for prescription drugs will be down 80, 90 percent, 75 percent, 68 percent. They have only gone up. For years and years and years, they have only gone up. And now we're going to have, essentially, the most favored nation. We're going to have the most favored price in the whole world.

Whatever the lowest price in the world is, that's what we're going to pay. And I don't want to go into a big deal, but nobody else could have gotten this but this administration. I'm being very nice when I say that.

The cost of prescription drugs is coming down by tremendous -- by a number that never -- was never even thought of. This will have a huge impact on health care, by the way, because, obviously, drugs are a big part of health care. And it will help repair some of the Unaffordable Care Act's damage that they have done, because the Unaffordable Care Act, which is Obamacare, it's unaffordable.

It's not affordable. And it's a disaster. And, hopefully, we will be paying money directly to the people, instead of giving the insurance companies some money. They will go into a health care savings account or whatever it is. But think of it. We pay the money, billions and billions, really trillions of dollars going to insurance companies.

We want that money to go to the people. They buy their own health care. And it'll be -- and it's so popular. The problem we have is that Democrats are owned by the insurance companies. They're literally owned lock, stock, and barrel by the insurance companies. And they hate it. But the people love it, including all Democrats. So

I think we will perhaps be successful with it. But it was an idea I had. I read the papers and I'm reading one of the stories about the insurance companies, how much money they're making, where they received billions and billions of dollars for this stuff from the United States of America.

And their stock has gone up by 1400 percent. Think of it, 1,400. One went up 1700 percent. Numbers went up. If you go up 1000 percent, you're doing bad in that business, right? And it's all because of the money, not all, but mostly because of the money the United States pays the insurance companies.

I say, this is really -- this is big stuff. And I asked somebody, why don't we just pay the people directly? And they said, that's a good idea. It's funny. It's a very complicated business, but actually it's not so complicated.

And I went to Bobby and I went to Dr. Oz, I said, can I talk to you guys about this? Is this the kind of money the insurance companies get? Yes. Why don't we pay the people directly? And the primary answer was that the Democrats will never go along with it.

But the people go along with it because I put it out. It went viral. It went viral. Susie, I went -- went all over the place. It became the biggest story. I just said it. And so I think we have a great situation if we can do it.

But if you think, most favored nation policy for drugs, we will bring you drug prices down at levels. So now they're selling a pill for $10 in London and $130 in New York. The London price will go up to $20, and we will go down to $20. So we will go from $130 down to $20.

And, by the way, tariffs did it again, because the -- no country -- the drug company said, we will do it, begrudgingly. But they were OK. But we will do it. But no nation is going to approve it, because even if you raise the price by, like, on a pill, $10 to $20, you're doubling the price of their prescription drugs.