Return to Transcripts main page

State of the Union

Interview With Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI); Interview With U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche; Interview With Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD); Interview With Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI). Aired 9-10a ET

Aired February 01, 2026 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:00:29]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANA BASH, CNN HOST (voice-over): Rule of law? The Justice Department takes aggressive new steps, arresting journalists.

GEORGIA FORT, JOURNALIST: Federal agents are at my door.

DON LEMON, FORMER CNN ANCHOR: I look forward to my day in court.

BASH: And raiding a Georgia election office over 2020 conspiracies.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They got into the votes. You see some interesting things happening.

BASH: What's next? Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche joins me in moments, and Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin will be here.

And deja vu. The government shuts down again, as Democrats dig in over Trump's immigration crackdown.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): Democrats will not support a DHS bill unless it rains IN ICE.

BASH: Can Democrats and Republicans reach a deal? I'll ask Republican Senator Ron Johnson.

Plus: warning signs. As some Republicans worry an immigration backlash could drag the party down, is the president serious about changing his approach? Our political panel breaks it all down.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: Hello. I'm Dana Bash in Washington, where the state of our union is catching our breath after a wild January.

It was a month that at times threatened to stretch America's constitutional system to its limits, as President Trump pushed the boundaries of his power from Venezuela to Minnesota and everywhere in between.

On Wednesday, the FBI carried out a raid on an election office in Fulton County, Georgia, long the focus of Trump's debunked claims about 2020 election fraud. On Friday, the Trump Justice Department took another dramatic step, arresting two journalists, including former CNN anchor Don Lemon, over their presence at a tense protest at a Minneapolis church earlier this month.

And to cap off the week, the Justice Department released three million more files related to Jeffrey Epstein and said it had fulfilled its obligations under the law, even as Epstein victims and members of both parties disagreed.

Here with me now is Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.

Thank you so much for joining me this morning.

I want to start with the Epstein files. Elon Musk, who is mentioned in some of these files, wrote -- quote -- "What matters is not the release of some subset of Epstein files, but rather the prosecution of those who committed heinous crimes with Epstein. When there is at least one arrest, some justice will have been done. If not, this is all performative, nothing but a distraction."

Is the Department of Justice considering bringing any additional charges here?

TODD BLANCHE, U.S. DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: Well, look, I can't talk about any investigations, but I will say the following, which is that, in July, the Department of Justice said that we had reviewed the files, the -- quote -- "Epstein files" and there was nothing in there that allowed us to prosecute anybody.

We then released over 3.5 million pieces of paper, which the entire world can look at now and see if we got it wrong. And so it's not performative. And I respectfully disagree with that statement.

We were ordered to do so by Congress and then by the president of the United States, and that's what we did. And let me -- I said it on Friday. This Justice Department, the FBI, DHS, we have gone after more sex traffickers, more child pornographers, more men who have done harm to children and young women than any administration in history.

And so we need to separate those two ideas, the fact that there's the Epstein files and whether there's anybody there that we can go after, and the work that we are doing every day, which is extraordinary, and we will continue to do that.

BASH: You just said that now these documents are out for the world to see, and maybe something could come up. Are you suggesting that, if somebody, if a sort of civilian sees something that you should prosecute, that that could open an investigation?

BLANCHE: Well, look, the way that we start many of our federal cases is because we hear tips from civilians or from others in the community. But my point in saying that was slightly different. It was that the

review that we had done before concluded that there was no such information, and that's where we remain for what we have seen and what we have released from the Epstein files.

Now, there's a lot of correspondence. There's a lot of e-mails. There's a lot of photographs. There's a lot of horrible photographs that appear to be taken by Mr. Epstein or people around him. But that doesn't allow us necessarily to prosecute somebody.

And that's what's important for the American people. And the victims want to be made whole. And so we want that. The attorney general wants that more than anything, but that doesn't mean we can just create evidence or that we can just kind of come up with a case that doesn't -- that isn't there.

[09:05:11]

BASH: Among these new files is a list compiled by the FBI just in August of numerous salacious, and to be really clear, unverified allegations about President Trump. Why did the FBI create this list last year? And have all of these claims been investigated by the DOJ?

BLANCHE: So, look, it's not about President Trump. It's about a ton of people, multiple, multiple people that were -- quote -- "in the Epstein files."

And what I think folks will see when they review the materials we released is that there have been hundreds of calls made to the FBI where allegations are made by either anonymous individuals or people who are very quickly determined to not be credible, whether it's the nature of what they're saying or the fact they won't provide any information or corroboration, and that's part of the Epstein files.

(CROSSTALK)

BLANCHE: So -- go ahead.

BASH: I understand that, but the fact that you created a list, the FBI created a list about the allegations against President Trump is certainly noteworthy. I mean, he's the sitting president.

And the question is whether or not the DOJ...

BLANCHE: But you're not...

BASH: But the question is -- and I'm not saying that they're verified at all, and that's what my question is to you. Did you look into what you have on those lists?

BLANCHE: Yes, of course, but, no, but what -- you're not being fair in that question, because that that index, that list you're talking about was not just President Trump.

It was all kinds of individuals, other politicians, other -- quote -- "famous people," where we wanted to understand. OK, there were members of Congress that were accusing us of hiding things, which we're not doing and which we haven't done.

And so we wanted to understand why and where that was coming from. And it turns out there was a number of claims made by either, like I said, anonymous people or somebody, for example, calling and saying, I used to have a roommate who told me this sensational story.

So just, obviously, that's not something that can be really investigated, right?

BASH: Right.

BLANCHE: What's your roommate's name? I don't remember, right?

BASH: Got it.

BLANCHE: So that's what that's about. I don't appreciate it being directed towards Donald J. Trump, because that pushes a narrative that is completely false.

It's -- there are all kinds of people that are mentioned in the -- quote -- "Epstein files" that we had to look at and run down.

BASH: Yes. No, I understand. He is the only sitting president who we're talking about.

I do want to move on. Former CNN anchor Don Lemon and another journalist, Georgia Fort, were arrested on Friday on charges they violated federal law during a tense protest at a Minnesota church. A conservative federal judge, somebody who clerked for Antonin Scalia, already had rejected those warrants and wrote that there is no evidence that those two engaged in any criminal behavior or conspired to do so.

Then an appeals court held up that decision. Why did you then bring this case to a grand jury after it already had been rejected by multiple judges?

BLANCHE: So, first of all, that appeals court, that's right.

The appeals court, the judge on the appeals court said that there was clearly probable cause and there was absolutely probable cause that a crime had been committed, OK?

BASH: By journalists.

BLANCHE: So it's true that they rejected the mandamus petition, but it -- yes, by Mr. Lemon and others. It's public.

And so, yes, you're right. A judge in that court had said there wasn't probable cause. But guess what? Our system doesn't allow judges to make that decision. They can make that decision to get an arrest warrant on a complaint, but only a grand jury can bring forth an indictment.

And so that's what we did. We went to a grand jury, which, as you know, are 25 citizens from Minneapolis and around... BASH: Yes.

BLANCHE: ... that decide whether there's probable cause. And that's who returned an indictment.

BASH: Mr. Blanche, I want to go -- actually, I went through the entire indictment, all 29 alleged overt acts of conspiracy.

BLANCHE: Yes.

BASH: And there's a lot to ask you about, but I'm just going to pick a few here, OK, starting with overt act number 20, which says -- quote -- "Defendant Lemon told his livestream audience about congregants leaving the church and about a young man who Lemon could see was frightened, scared and crying. And Lemon observed that the congregants' reactions were understandable because the experience was traumatic and uncomfortable, which he said was the purpose."

Over act 21 says -- quote -- "As the operation continued, defendant Lemon acknowledged the nature of it by expressing surprise that the police hadn't yet arrived at the church and admitted knowing that the whole point of the operation was to disrupt."

Why wouldn't a jury at trial see this as a journalist observing what is happening, which is protected by the First Amendment?

BLANCHE: Well, you conveniently left out multiple allegations in that indictment about what else Mr. Lemon did, including surreptitiously avoiding saying where they were going, being part of the planning, being part of the decisions to make sure the police didn't know this was happening and federal law enforcement didn't know this was happening.

[09:10:05]

There are multiple allegations there. And guess what? He gets to have a lawyer and he gets to have a defense.

BASH: Yes.

BLANCHE: And so if he wants to go forward with the defense that, aw, shucks, I was just a journalist, he can do that. But, obviously, as the indictment lays out and what you didn't read on the air, there's a lot of things that Mr. Lemon did that you would never do as a journalist. You would never do that.

(CROSSTALK)

BLANCHE: Let's be honest.

BASH: OK, this is not about me. This is about what happened and this is about kind of the rules of the road.

I mean, there are many...

(CROSSTALK) BLANCHE: No, but journalist standards matter.

BASH: Wait. Let me finish my question. Let me finish my question and then you have the floor.

There are countless examples of when reporters are embedded with people, with DOD, where we are told not to tell anybody where we're going. There are numerous examples of when we get embargoed information that we can't report from your agency, for example, and that has happened on -- with presidents in both parties, and we withhold reporting it until you say it's time to report it.

That's not unusual. And it's not unlike what happened with Don Lemon and Georgia Fort.

BLANCHE: Well, listen, I -- you are totally correct that that happens every day and it's happened for decades.

But if you watch what Mr. Lemon did, OK -- and I do not want to have a trial right here. It's not fair to him. But I will say that he -- if you watch the publicly available livestreaming that he engaged in, the comments that he made -- I mean, that's what it matters, right?

It matters, like, how do we balance the FACE Act, how do we balance freedom of religion, the right of people to worship on a Sunday morning, OK, and the freedom of the press? And it's a balance that we have to engage in. And I agree with you.

But my point to you is that I promise you that neither you nor your colleagues can honestly, with a straight face, if you watch everything that he did in the day before with the planning and the day of with what happened, the comments he made while the kids were crying and screaming and racing away, while the parents were looking for their children upstairs...

BASH: But he doesn't have a...

BLANCHE: ... while they were just trying to -- have a church service. And so...

BASH: OK.

Bottom-line question for you is, was this really about what you just described, or was it about trying to make an example out of somebody who the president has sparred with?

BLANCHE: I don't even know that the president's even ever thought of Don Lemon. I don't know whether that's true or not.

But I will tell you, we're not making examples of people. The day after that happened, the attorney general flew to Minneapolis. She was there for three days. What we saw...

BASH: OK.

BLANCHE: ... there is no scenario under which the American people are comfortable or think that that was right. I'm sorry.

So, no, this is not about making an example. It's about justice.

BASH: Mr. Blanche, I want to move on. I want to move on.

But the White House, on the official Twitter handle, celebrated his arrest with a social media and a chain emoji. And -- so it's pretty clear that they're very well aware in the White House of this.

I want to ask about Georgia, because, this week...

BLANCHE: No, I didn't say they weren't aware.

(CROSSTALK)

BLANCHE: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on one second. I didn't say they weren't aware. I didn't say they weren't aware.

BASH: And they were celebrating. That was afterwards.

(CROSSTALK)

BLANCHE: No, no, you said that President Trump had some vendetta or something against Mr. Lemon. I said I don't know whether he even ever thought of Mr. Lemon. I have no idea.

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: He -- just yesterday, he called him a sleazebag.

BLANCHE: I have no idea. You're right there was a tweet that went out.

BASH: Just so you know, he called him a sleazebag just yesterday.

BLANCHE: After his arrest. After his arrest.

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: OK. Just -- you said a lot of things before that. And it's mutual.

But let me start -- let me move on to Georgia. Earlier this week, the FBI went into the elections office in Fulton County, Georgia, to seize 2020 ballots, voter rolls, scanner images. And the president told reporters -- quote -- "They got into the votes. You're going to see some interesting things happening."

What interesting things is he talking about? And why was he so involved in an FBI and DOJ raid?

BLANCHE: Well, just because he said that doesn't mean that he's involved. I don't believe he was involved.

This is a criminal grand jury investigation. And I can't comment on it beyond what you just said, which is that there was a search warrant that was authorized by a federal judge, by a magistrate judge in Atlanta that allowed us to go and seize those records.

And they have been seized by the FBI as part of an ongoing criminal investigation.

BASH: He said: "Interesting things are happening." So it sounds like he was briefed on it.

BLANCHE: I mean, I don't know. I'm not around when the president's briefed or not briefed. What I have said is that this is a criminal investigation, so it's tightly held, as it must be under the law. It's a grand jury investigation, and that's how we're proceeding.

BASH: What are they investigating?

BLANCHE: As you know, we can't talk about specifics of any grand jury investigation. I will tell you, as I said on Friday, as the president said, election integrity is of the highest importance to the American people, hopefully to everybody in this country, Democrats and Republicans alike.

[09:15:02]

And so we are doing everything we can to make sure that we have free and fair elections.

BASH: OK.

And, as you well know, that when it comes to Georgia, claims of voter fraud there, because they got the 2020 ballots, have been debunked over and over again. There were multiple recounts.

Why was the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, present at an FBI raid?

BLANCHE: First of all, it wasn't an FBI raid. It was a search warrant being executed by FBI agents in the middle of the day.

BASH: Why was she there?

BLANCHE: And, secondly, I don't -- and, secondly, I don't know why the director was there. She is not part of the grand jury investigation, but she is for sure a key part of our efforts at election integrity and making sure that we have free and fair elections.

She's an expert in that space. And it's a big part of what she and her team look at every day. But, beyond that, I don't -- like I said before, this is a grand jury investigation being conducted by a U.S. attorney. And that's where we have to leave it for now.

BASH: Mr. Blanche, imagine if President Biden sent his politically appointed director of national intelligence to Mar-a-Lago. You and his other personal attorneys would have been understandably very unhappy about it. Are you unhappy that the DNI, Tulsi Gabbard, was there?

BLANCHE: Well, first of all, Biden's director of ODNI was involved in that case, as we all know.

BASH: He wasn't there.

BLANCHE: So whether the -- OK. OK. But that's hardly the point.

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: And it also involved classified documents, not necessarily voter rolls.

BLANCHE: And as you -- again, there's a lot of classified information around voter integrity, which is something that came out during the case against President Trump, and which has been publicly talked about for many, many years.

So, no, I'm not unhappy or happy. Tulsi can go where she needs to go. She's phenomenal. She's doing a great job. And she's a partner with us. But, like I said, folks want to make something out of this that does not exist. This is a grand jury investigation being run by the FBI.

BASH: All right, Todd Blanche, thank you so much for being here this morning. I really appreciate you being here and answering questions.

BLANCHE: Thank you. Thank you.

BASH: Up next, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee is here. Jamie Raskin, congressman from Maryland, will respond.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:21:34]

BASH: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION.

Let's get straight to the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Congressman Jamie Raskin.

Thank you so much for being here.

I want to start with the Epstein files and what the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, told me in the last segment that effectively case closed. He said it's possible if somebody seems to see something with all of these documents that have been released that requires them to look into a potential prosecution perhaps, but, other than that, they're done.

REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Case closed has been their mantra since January.

In January, they demanded all the files from the prosecutors in New York who were running the case, brought them to Washington and said, this case is over. We're not doing anything else. They told us the same thing when Kash Patel came to the Judiciary Committee.

He said, it's been fully analyzed. Everything's been redacted. There's nothing to see there and there are no further cases. And when people said, have you spoken to all of the survivors? There are dozens of survivors who are out organizing and talking about what needs to be done. He says, well, our doors are open if they have something to tell us.

They have done no real investigation. Their entire determination has been to shut it down to protect Donald Trump. And your interview with Mr. Blanche is astonishing, because it shows he has never once attempted to make the transformation from being Donald Trump's personal criminal defense lawyer to the number two person for the United States Department of Justice.

BASH: I know you want to see a lot of this, as the last time was redacted. A lot of the victims are upset that it looks like they were protecting the people who were -- the men who were involved.

RASKIN: Yes.

BASH: ... and not necessarily them. But I know that you -- the Justice Department, he said in his press conference Friday that people like you and other members of Congress could go and see the unredacted documents. Are you going to do that?

RASKIN: Absolutely.

BASH: And what are you going to be looking for?

RASKIN: We sent them a letter, and so we're demanding a right to do it.

BASH: Yes.

RASKIN: I hope the Department of Justice will keep to its word and let us in there.

Remember, they have said there are six million potentially responsive documents there. They have only released three million with more than 10,000 redactions. So we have to go look at those redactions. They have not sent us the explanation yet for those redactions.

But then what about the other three million files? Because we are witnessing a full-blown cover-up. Remember, not only is there a subpoena to Attorney General Bondi to turn everything over to Congress. Now there's a federal law compelling them to turn it over.

And yet we're just getting these dribs and drabs of information coming out, this stuff that they want us to see.

BASH: I mean, they say three -- I mean, three million documents is not nothing, but you're...

RASKIN: It's close to nothing when they're deciding which documents are coming out, and there's a federal law and a subpoena compelling them to just turn everything over to Congress.

And they said that they had done this process many months ago and there's nothing to see there.

BASH: I want to ask you about Georgia.

The deputy attorney general didn't seem to know why the director of national intelligence was there when they went and seized the 2020 ballots and other information from Fulton County, which is kind of the epicenter of President Trump's unfounded claims about the election.

RASKIN: Yes.

BASH: Was it -- I mean, you're a constitutional expert. Was that something that...

(CROSSTALK)

RASKIN: I mean, they haven't given us any explanation. I know that she's had fairly close relations with Russia in the past, and maybe she's trying to investigate the Russian role. We know that Russia's been trying to interfere in our elections since 2016. So I really have no idea why she would be there.

[09:25:07]

But I will tell you this about the elections case in Georgia. It has been thoroughly investigated, litigated, and adjudicated repeatedly. And, remember, there are 60 federal and state court cases, including from Georgia, including from Trump-appointed judges rejecting every claim of electoral fraud and corruption.

In fact, FOX News had to pay Dominion -- the Dominion business $787 million because they lied about what had happened in Georgia. And they created all kinds of fraudulent, defamatory statements about what took place there.

You can read the January 6 Select Committee report about it. Nobody has laid a glove on that. In other words, this is settled fact. This is what the lawyers call res judicata.

It's over. So Donald Trump obviously wants to keep going back to the scene of his crime, his attack on the election, to claim that something's there. But everybody saw what happened. He called up the secretary of state, a Republican, Mr. Raffensperger, and he said: "Just find me 11,780 votes. That's all I want."

And so that's not Donald Trump trying to stop election fraud. That's Donald Trump trying to commit election fraud.

BASH: I do want to ask about something that's coming up in the House this week. And that is the former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, they were already held in contempt by the Oversight Committee. Several Democrats voted yes on that too.

It's going to come before the full House soon. Will you vote yes? RASKIN: I mean, I will vote yes on contempt against them and anybody

else, as long as Pam Bondi is part of it. And the Democrats on the Oversight Committee raised Pam Bondi.

Remember, she's got millions of documents that she is legally compelled to turn over under a months-old subpoena and under federal law, and she's not doing it. So I don't think we should be holding anybody in contempt, including people who've engaged in at least partial compliance, unless we're going to get that huge mountain of documents that's being held by the DOJ.

BASH: So presumably Republicans are not going to do that.

RASKIN: Well, if they're not going to do it, then they're not serious about investigating the Epstein files, and that's what America wants.

BASH: So you vote no on the Clintons?

RASKIN: I will definitely vote no on any partisan measure, one side or the other. I want all of the information from everybody, and I want everybody to come forward and comply, including Ghislaine Maxwell, GMax, the sexual predator, who Virginia Giuffre said opened the gates to hell for these women and for these girls.

I wonder if Mr. Blanche has even read Virginia's phrase book about what happened, "Nobody's Girl." He should go ahead and read it and try to understand what he's doing, because he's acting like his only interest in the whole event is to protect Donald Trump.

BASH: I do want to ask about what's going on in Congress, which is directly related to what we were seeing on the ground in Minneapolis.

The government is effectively shut down now because the House -- the deadline came and went on Friday. The Senate passed a package that would fund most of the government. I shouldn't say the government is effectively shut down. Parts of the government is shut down.

RASKIN: Yes. It's Homeland Security and some associated...

BASH: It's Homeland Security. And the House Democratic leader, Jeffries, said that there aren't enough Democrats to go along with Republicans to keep it open. What is going to happen? What do you want to happen in order to reopen the government with regard to DHS funding?

RASKIN: Well, that's the key question. And the country's in an uproar over what we have seen in Minneapolis, where they're shooting U.S. citizens in the face. People are being gunned down simply for exercising their First Amendment rights and their Second Amendment rights.

And the whole country's been able to see that and to catch the administration in the lies and the propaganda and the disinformation they're telling.

What do we want? We want the Constitution to be enforced. We want ICE to obey all of the laws that every other law enforcement entity in America obeys. They should not be masked. Local police are not masked. The county police are not masked, the state police.

BASH: But that was agreed to in general, but there's a two-week window while those are -- those details are worked out.

RASKIN: Well, that's right.

BASH: Will you vote for something that at least funds the government for two weeks while that is negotiated?

RASKIN: Yes, well, the devil is in the details. So we want to see everything that's in there. They should not be anonymous. They should be identifiable.

And they have to have rules of engagement that don't allow them to terrorize and intimidate, harass and assault U.S. citizens and other people.

BASH: Real quick, before I let you go, the Department of Justice, according to Todd Blanche, is investigating the death of Alex Pretti. There's a Civil Rights Division investigation. You trust that?

RASKIN: Well, we will have to see. A lot of people resigned precisely because they said they wouldn't investigate Alex Pretti's murder and they would not investigate Renee Good's killing either.

And so a lot of the people in the Civil Rights section have basically decamped because they're saying they're not serious. They were investigating Renee Good's spouse, her wife.

[09:30:08]

So they need to demonstrate that they are serious. And, again, this is a Department of Justice which has barely a shred of credibility left, because they keep lying about what they're doing. There are so many court decisions across the country that have found that DOJ has been lying in court about material matters to the justice system.

BASH: Congressman Jamie Raskin, thank you for being here.

RASKIN: You bet.

BASH: I appreciate it.

RASKIN: It's my pleasure.

BASH: Coming up: Democrats see an opening to rein in ICE. Are Republicans willing to make that deal?

That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION.

Two weeks, that's how long the Senate has to negotiate a deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security or shut it down.

Here with me now is a member of the Homeland Security Committee, Republican Senator Ron Johnson.

Thank you so much for being here.

[09:35:00]

I know you have said that Democrats are demanding things that are impossible to give them, things that you said would neuter immigration enforcement. But my question is, what is the problem with asking federal law enforcement to wear body cameras, end roving immigration patrols, and be subject to the same use of force standards that local law enforcement tends to be?

SEN. RON JOHNSON (R-WI): Good morning, Dana.

Well, again, what the Democrats were demanding were judicial warrants. Immigration has always been enforced through administrative warrants. You have got millions of cases because President Biden and Democrats opened the border in flooded America with millions of people.

Included in those millions are criminals, sex traffickers, human traffickers, drug traffickers, members of transnational criminal organizations, violent gangs. So Democrats create this enormous mess and President Trump's trying to clean it up.

And I have got a great deal of sympathy for those individuals, whether it's department secretaries or the law enforcement officers on the ground, trying to clean up that mess. How would you like to be an ICE officer or any law enforcement officer where you have got literally Signal chats that are deploying trained activists to surround you in your enforcement actions?

You don't have any idea what these people may do to you. You have already been shot at. You have had your vehicles rammed by these peaceful protesters, by their vehicles. So, again, ICE officers, Customs and Border Patrol, they are at hair-trigger alert because of this activism.

BASH: Yes.

JOHNSON: Where you have enforcement, law enforcement, cooperating, state and local government cooperating with ICE, you don't have these kind of instances, these tragedies that occurred in Minneapolis.

BASH: Well, wouldn't, for example, wearing a body camera help with what you're describing?

JOHNSON: Again, I don't have a problem with that personally, but that's not what I heard Democrats were demanding. Their primary demand was judicial warrants...

BASH: Let me ask you about that.

JOHNSON: ... which is completely unacceptable, not when they have flooded the border with millions of people. You have got to do that through administrative warrants.

BASH: OK, let me ask you about that because it is one of the things that Democrats want to require. They want to require immigration agents to get warrants signed by judges before executing arrests or searches, instead of those administrative warrants.

A federal judge in Texas just yesterday, Senator, slammed that practice. And he wrote -- quote -- "Civics lesson to the government. Administrative warrants issued by the executive branch to itself do not pass probable cause muster. That is called the fox guarding the henhouse. The Constitution requires an independent judicial officer."

Why is he wrong? Why shouldn't DHS have to go to a judge to get a warrant before detaining people?

JOHNSON: Because this has to do with immigration law. It's -- again, I'm not a lawyer, but, again, this is immigration law that has always been adjudicated through the administration, administrative judges, and particularly when you have the Biden administration and Democrats opening up the border and flooding America with millions of people.

And we have got millions of cases backlogged. We're talking about general criminal law. You're talking probably hundreds or thousands of cases. We have millions of cases. So demanding judicial warrants is their sneaky way of basically neutering our ability to enforce any immigration laws.

BASH: But should there be any limits? But should there be any limits?

JOHNSON: Again, they already neutered it.

BASH: Go ahead.

JOHNSON: There already are limits. And I think what we need to do is, we need to -- we have secured the border now.

We need cooperation, state and local governments, when they have detained a criminal that's committed violent crimes or whatever, they need to notify ICE and leave that individual in jail, so ICE can pick them up in the jail, where it's safe for everybody concerned, as opposed to sanctuary citizen states that don't cooperate with ICE, release illegal immigrants that have committed crimes to further prey on their societies.

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: Yes.

And, Senator, I think part of the issue has been that ICE is casting such a wide net, to include many, many people who don't fit the description that you just made about hardened criminals, and that is causing problems with regard to these administrative warrants.

Do you see that as a potential issue?

JOHNSON: So, of course. Of course, Tom Homan now is dedicated to targeting the criminals.

BASH: Yes.

JOHNSON: I have a great deal of sympathy for, again, the secretaries, the people charged with cleaning up this enormous mess. Do they -- is it perfect? Absolutely not. Can things be tightened up? Sure.

BASH: OK.

JOHNSON: But the way to tighten it up is not to neuter our ability to enforce our immigration laws. And that's what Democrats want to do.

BASH: I do want to ask you before we go about President Trump suing the IRS for at least $10 billion. He's accusing the agency of authorizing a leak of his tax returns during the first administration.

So, just to be clear here, this is a sitting president suing American taxpayers for $10 billion. Are you comfortable with that?

JOHNSON: Well, first, I don't -- I don't doubt the federal government deserves to be sued. The problem is, we don't have $10 billion.

[09:40:04]

My preference would be to do a robust investigation, find out who leaked those tax returns. That's a federal crime, and punish those individuals to the folks that are in the law.

BASH: So drop the $10 billion lawsuit?

JOHNSON: Investigate and find out who actually leaked those -- those documents, those tax returns, and prosecute those folks, that's -- that would be my preference.

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

Up next...

JOHNSON: Have a good day.

BASH: Thank you. You too.

Up next: Immigration was always a winning issue for Republicans. Is that changing? We will discuss with our panel.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:45:01]

BASH: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION.

Republicans are a bit worried that one of President Trump's core issues, immigration, could be dragging the party down.

My panel is here with me now. Thank you all for being here.

Bill Stepien, you were the president's campaign manager. You understand the politics of everything with the president very well, especially immigration.

Are you concerned?

BILL STEPIEN, TRUMP 2020 CAMPAIGN MANAGER: Sure.

And I was also the political director in the White House in 2018, the last midterm.

BASH: Exactly.

STEPIEN: So these are always challenging environments.

I think Democrats have done a smart job of bifurcating immigration, which was always a strength of Trump's, into the border and enforcement. And I think the enforcement area is one in which is a soft spot for him right now, which is why you saw Tom Homan dispatched as quickly as he was to Minnesota to try and shore that up.

BASH: And let me just sort of put some meat on the bones here. This is from a FOX News poll this past week.

The question is whether ICE enforcement is too aggressive. All respondents, 59 percent, independents 71 percent. And you can see the difference between now and just a couple of months ago.

KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, there's been a big shift here, in that immigration has long been one of Donald Trump's political strong spots, especially when he talks about it in terms of we need to be tough on illegal immigration to make you safe.

What's happened over the last couple of weeks in particular is that Americans no longer feel like his actions are making them safe. They feel like they're making them less safe. When I look at my own polling, people now believe that perhaps they're going after people who are not a threat, that the actions themselves that ICE is taking have become a threat.

And as long as Americans feel like the policy is not making them safe and is in fact making them less safe, this former bright spot in President Trump's polling will be a drag on him and the party.

BASH: You're on the ballot, as you are every two years as a sitting member of Congress.

What are the discussions like, the political discussions about this?

REP. DEBBIE DINGELL (D-MI): Oh, when I'm home, which all politics is local, people are really upset.

I think you have described the situation very clearly. My district is great because it's got very strong MAGA base and it's got a very strong progressive base. Hysteria reigned this week on some ICE detentions. Rumors abound. There were rumors that ICE officers were checking into -- which was totally not true, a hotel, and they had a marching band and 1,000 people headed for that hotel.

People are afraid. And the president promised to get violent people off of the street. And what they're seeing -- violent immigrants, noncitizens. And what they have seen in the last two weeks is two Americans, the last words, one said was, "It's OK, I'm not mad," the other, a VA nurse, whose natural instinct is to go put a helping hand out to someone, what he was doing, pepper-sprayed.

Americans are disturbed by what they're seeing and want something to be done.

BILL DE BLASIO (D), FORMER MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY: Look, what Trump has done is extremism. Let's be clear.

You win elections with populism. You lose elections with extremism. I think that's part of what happened to Trump in 2020, is folks saw all sorts of erratic and strange actions. And that's not what Americans want.

Right now, Democrats, as always, should focus on the kitchen table. The congressmember knows that better than anyone, the health care, the cost of living, et cetera. But at the same time, there's a question of our basic American liberties. And what folks are seeing is liberties being trampled.

That footage of Alex Pretti being killed, that is going to be felt throughout this year. It's emotional. It's powerful. It's not what the American people want.

BASH: If you were the political director this time around for this set of midterm elections, what would your advice be to the president?

STEPIEN: I think the mayor has some good advice. I mean, get back to basics, I think talking about affordability.

You see attempts by the White House, by the president to get out of D.C. onto the stump around the country, back to real America. Those attempts are thwarted. They will have stops and starts in those efforts. But I think you're right. Get back to the kitchen table. That's what Americans want to hear.

DE BLASIO: But he doesn't do it.

I mean, I have to say, what's amazing, Trump, we all know, struggles to stay on message. But when he's talking about affordability, there's a certain strain in his voice, as it were. He used to denigrate the phrase affordability. Now he's trying to adopt it. But he's talking about Greenland. He's talking about Iran. He's talking about Venezuela.

He -- originally, his team attacked Alex Pretti and Renee Good. They just can't get to affordability because they have all these other extreme dynamics in the way. And I -- if I was a Republican right now, I'd say, how do we possibly get ourselves back to what the American people care about?

DINGELL: I don't think that he understands how people are hurting right now.

I go to Kroger grocery store every Sunday morning. People come up and show me. Millions of people don't have health insurance right now. They put off going to the doctor because they can't afford it. Coldest winter on record in years, utility bills sky high. He does not understand what American people are really worried about.

SOLTIS ANDERSON: Yes, I mean, affordability is the number one issue.

[09:50:00]

But I don't want to downplay the importance of things like immigration, which, again, when you have looked at Donald Trump's job approval, and he used to be in his first term two issues where he was always strong, the economy and immigration.

In this term, the economy went first, where people about a couple of months in began to say, I don't know that I'm feeling that cost of living has come down enough. But that could always change. You could get to this November and people feel differently about the economy. And that really has to be what this White House is banking on.

STEPIEN: Yes.

And, look, it's a midterm election, low turnout election. Part of a midterm election is revving up the base, right? The number of independent voters voting this November is going to be much smaller than two years ago. So I do think part of this is a political calculation to not lose the base.

DINGELL: It is turnout. So -- but whose base is excited right now?

STEPIEN: Right.

DINGELL: The Republican base isn't.

Independents, who you don't know about, are more engaged and angry and worried than I've seen them and I think are more likely to vote Democratic this time.

BASH: We're going to have to leave it there. Thank you all for being here. Appreciate it.

When we come back, an update on the case of 5-year-old Liam Ramos and his father.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:55:46]

BASH: You've probably seen the image by now, 5-year-old Liam Ramos standing in the snow in Minneapolis wearing a knit blue bunny hat and a Spider-Man backpack waiting to get in a car with federal immigration agents.

For over a week, Liam and his father, Adrian, have been at a detention center in Texas. But, yesterday, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery ordered them released. He -- blasting -- blasting it all in a -- quote -- "ill-conceived and incompletely -- incompetently," rather, "implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children."

"For some among us," the judge wrote, "the perfidious lust for unbridled power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest know no bounds and our bereft of human decency, and the rule of law be damned."

He closed his ruling with a nod to two biblical passages from the Gospel of Matthew -- quote -- "Let the children -- little children come to me and do not hinder them," and from the Gospel of John, "Jesus wept."

Thank you for joining us this Sunday morning.

"FAREED ZAKARIA GPS" picks it up next.