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The Story Is with Elex Michaelson

Mass Protests Planned Across U.S.; I.C.E Agent's Cellphone Captures Deadly Shooting; Unrest in Iran; Iran Cuts Internet Amid Anti-Government Protests; CNN Gets Inside Look At Counter-Narcotics Operation; Trump To Meet Colombian President After Clashing Publicly; Slow December Hiring Ends Weak Year Of Job Growth; Crew Set To Return Early after onboard medial issue; Nikki Glaser Back by Popular Demand To Host The Gloden Globes; Aired 12-1a ET

Aired January 10, 2026 - 00:00   ET

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

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- and good order, Elex Michaelson is going to pick up the breaking news coverage right now.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The I.C.E. officer does not have complete immunity here.

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ELEX MICHAELSON, CNN HOST: "The Story Is," weekend of protests, tens of thousands plan to hit the street for I.C.E. related shootings in Minnesota and Oregon.

"The Story Is" protests erupt in Iran, the biggest challenge to the regime in decades.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I describe the Islamic Republic of Iran now as a zombie regime.

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MICHAELSON: "The Story Is" the war on drugs. CNNs David Coleman embeds with Colombia's military as they disrupt a cocaine factory.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want people to tune in to be like, what will she say? What might they bleed? What might happen? Who's going to fall?

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MICHAELSON: Plus, "The Story Is" the Golden Globes were one-on-one with host Nikki Glaser.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Live from Los Angeles. "The Story Is" with Elex Michaelson.

MICHAELSON: Welcome to "The Story Is," I'm Elex Michaelson, live in Los Angeles. We're expecting to see more than a 1000 protests against I.C.E. across the U.S. this weekend, and one of them is happening right now in Minneapolis. We begin with breaking news from Minneapolis, where protesters are marching for the third night. CNNs, Omar Jimenez is live in the middle of it. Omar, what's happening now?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, so, Elex, we've been tracking this protest for really the past two hours. Now this is something that's really swelled and shrunk in size over the course of the evening, but you can actually see a line of state patrol officers really on the other side facing these protesters right now.

Now, what we have seen with these, with this group in particular, they have really been going to where they believe federal immigration agents are staying. I'm talking about hotels here in Downtown Minneapolis. You can hear the drums, but they have tried to make as much noise as humanly possible, banging on drums, blowing whistles, even shining lights on the windows of some of the buildings as well. And we observed a lot of the protests, at least for a good portion of the evening, without really a law enforcement presence. There were bits and pieces that we saw, but then all of a sudden, it seemed like there was none outside of the presence of maybe a drone.

Looking down, you can see they're shining a spotlight now, just on the side of that building to the left. But then again, seemingly out of nowhere, law enforcement showed up, and we were in this intersection behind the line of state law enforcement that you're seeing here. When law enforcement came from one direction, they came from a second direction, a third. That's when we made our exits, and then, sure enough, they blocked off a fourth exit here, completely sealing off that block. We've heard them declare this an unlawful assembly.

Since we've been out here as someone from either local or state, law enforcement has gotten on the loud speaker to declare it so. But that has not sent any of the folks here away. And the center, of course, of these protests has been against federal immigration presence, federal immigration enforcement presence in this city. That's really the theme of protests we've seen across various parts of Minneapolis over the course of the day since Renee Good was shot and killed, and I want to contrast this with what we have seen at the memorial site, which has been much more somber and quiet. And while chants have broken out of points, it's really been a steady stream of people coming to pay their respects.

And then you have what we saw outside of a federal building miles from even here. That's where we saw a lot of the confrontations with Border Patrol agents and federal immigration enforcement, where people were getting pepper sprayed, thrown to the ground, even taken into custody, detained. And then this is in the face of state and local law enforcement, which to this point, relations between a lot of the protesters at the memorial site, for example, and local law enforcement have been pretty cordial, and this is now really to the point where it's most confrontation we've seen, though, I will say that to this point, law enforcement has just really maintained a line. We have not again, to this point, seeing people getting detained or taken to the ground, Elex.

MICHAELSON: And Omar, from your picture. So far, it seemed like it's state police that's out in force, not the local police. Why is that?

JIMENEZ: I believe that in situations like this, typically what they do is they try to get as many resources as they can. We've actually seen a few different types of officers out here. We've seen state police, we've seen Minneapolis Police. We also saw what appeared to be conservation police, at least on the vest, so that could either be personnel or for the types of vests themselves, but at the very least, it is a very significant law enforcement. Presence here in Downtown Minneapolis, and one that has really seemed to come to secure this particular area of the city, and even beyond this line of law enforcement, you may be able to see the amount of officers that are in that particular intersection surrounding that flashing lights squad car or this flashing lights vehicle at this point.

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And so what again, contrasting with what we saw when we first got to the protests, where there were many more protesters than law enforcement, with minimal law enforcement to be seen, if not zero, which we observed at points.

Now, the dynamic has seemed to completely shift. Where there, where the law enforcement is completely outnumbering the protesters, despite the noise that they continue to make, despite the lights they continue to shine on some of the buildings, a completely different dynamic here than when we first got here and we observed they marched from one hotel where they believed immigration enforcement was staying to another, and then now being pushed back and over to this portion of the street where law enforcement is holding the line.

MICHAELSON: Yeah, and Omar as what you're talking from another camera. We're looking at live pictures of arrests that have begun, as Omar pointed out, an unlawful assembly has been declared. So after an unlawful assembly is declared, you have to leave, and if you don't leave. Law enforcement has a right to arrest you. It looks like those arrests are now happening. Looks like they are peaceful in nature. I mean, have -- from what you have seen tonight, has there been much violence? Have people been peaceful? What are you seeing in terms of your vantage point?

JIMENEZ: From my vantage point, I have not seen violence, if anything, it has just been noise. Now look, right now, it does seem people are throwing snow balls. There is a lot of ice on the ground, potentially some ice as well. You see it kind of landing in that line of law enforcement. They're trying to catch it. It looks like, it doesn't look like they're, they're, they're seeing it as so much of a threat. But at the very least, we have not seen large scale violence to this point.

All the protests that we have seen from our vantage point have been peaceful. But it's not surprising to hear that arrests are starting, because once we heard that unlawful assembly announced over the loud speakers, that obviously opens up an entirely new dynamic. That's a pretty big chunk. They're throwing a lot of snow and some ice towards that line of law enforcement, as it seems, law enforcement is briefing some folks in nearby businesses and buildings here.

But you mentioned those arrests starting. I mean, for those that are still in the line of law enforcement here. Obviously there's a lot of anger in this community. There is -- there are a lot of strong feelings, but at this point, you see more reinforcements coming to this line. At this point when that unlawful assembly has been declared and you still have people facing down law enforcement from just a few feet away. You don't have to think hard for what may come next.

You just get the sense, though, that people don't quite care really. They're still banging on their drums, they're still blowing their whistles. They're still making their presence known, not just to these law enforcement officers, but really, at this point, to a lot of this part of Downtown Minneapolis, Elex.

MICHAELSON: And interesting to see the restraint there from the state police officers who are getting all these snow balls thrown at them, because we have seen some of the federal immigration officials from your own live shots, when they get stuff thrown at them, they usually don't just stand there, right?

JIMENEZ: Yeah, we have -- yeah, 100 percent when we were outside the federal building that's this miles from here a little bit closer to the airport right now, that was a little bit closer to the airport. That was where actually the most contentious confrontations have been, because the federal immigration officers and the federal agents outside that building are also at the center of what exactly these protesters are protesting to get federal immigration enforcement out of the city of Minneapolis.

So in that case, we have seen a lot more people pepper sprayed. And yes, when we were there, we were looking at a scene similar to this, and we saw a water bottle come through, and almost as soon as that water bottle landed, that is when immigration enforcement agents, quite literally sprinted into the crowd, forcing all of us to sprint back because we didn't know what they were sprinting after, and they started taking people down. They detained at least one person who we saw throw something different, not that water bottle, but nonetheless, it prompted a very quick and aggressive response from law enforcement.

Even today, one of our other crews was back outside that federal building, and someone slapped a -- an ice vehicle as it walked by, and that prompted those agents to get out and take at least two people into custody. So the difference right now, it's interesting to see you point out the restraint, because that restraint is so evident right now, because they are getting hit with what looks like snow, but I can tell you looking at the ground, it is very icy right now here in Minneapolis, so a lot of ice likely in that, so safe to say that whatever is being thrown is making an impact.

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But we have not seen that same sort of charging into the crowd that we observed outside that federal building, and that charging that was sort of led by federal agents at that time. That was yesterday, Elex.

MICHAELSON: Yeah. And when we saw I.C.E. and border patrol here in the streets of Southern California earlier in the year or the last year, I should say --

JIMENEZ: Yeah.

MICHAELSON: -- earlier in the year. Whenever anything was thrown where there was any sort of threat, it was sort of, we're not doing this. We're not messing around. So what do you expect, Omar, in the hours ahead? Clearly, these folks trying to keep these, these federal law enforcement immigration officials up so that they can't get sleep and make this as uncomfortable for them as possible to be in this community. And I'm sure anybody else who happens to be staying at this hotel is uncomfortable for them too.

JIMENEZ: Yeah. I mean, we are in Downtown Minneapolis, so whether the agents were actually in the hotel rooms, they believe they were or not. People in general are hearing the protests in this city tonight. You talk about sort of the idea in these protests to make their presence known, to make themselves, I guess to make the jobs of immigration enforcement agents as difficult as possible. That is actually a theme of resistance that we have seen in many cities across the United States.

In Chicago, for example, I was doing reporting there, and we've seen that in neighborhoods, when they see vehicles that they believe are federal immigration enforcement, people will honk their horns, they will blow their whistles. They will respond and film with their cell phone, with their cell phones and try and document potential arrests or detainments that are happening. But again, it's that same sort of dynamic of resistance, whether it's a danger to the general public or not.

In the case of caravanning behind many of these immigration enforcement agents, which you've seen play out in many cities across the country. But in this case, I'm talking about Chicago, the theme sort of remains the same, to make their presence, to make the protesters presence known, but also to try and send a message to immigration enforcement agents that they are not welcome here. And you know what? We're going to back up just a little bit here, because what's happening right now we've seen this over the course of the night, is that law enforcement -- and then they will pull up a second line behind, sort of where the protesters have been gathered.

They'll pull up behind where the protesters have been gathered, and then start either pushing toward that original line, sort of trying to box people in, or they will then hold a separate line, trying to get people to go in a certain direction, which we have seen play out a few different points. That line, by the way that we were just showing you a few minutes ago, that started with police sort of blocking three directions of the intersection, and that fourth direction was clear, and everybody sort of came the direction that we did. And this was the law enforcement presence that sort of pulled up behind us. So you can see local law enforcement here pulling up on this side of the street, and the protesters are now heading that direction. And so it's unclear, as really, everyone has cleared out from that state patrol line that we were showing a few moments ago. And with these protesters marching this way, you hear the honking from these cars, just based on what we've seen the past few days. It doesn't seem to be honking because they want them out of the way. Honking tends to indicate in protests, or when these protesters are seen, that they are in support of what's being done here, just because that is typically the warning system for federal immigration -- that federal immigration enforcement is near, and you see these police officers sort of while they're dressing up in what appears to be riot gear here, as they as these protests, are sort of walking past them.

So clearly, what was previously a stepped up law enforcement presence before is now stepping up to an even further degree here in Downtown Minneapolis, even as the number, the sheer number of protesters itself has dwindled, Elex.

MICHAELSON: Omar Jimenez, who has been reporting tirelessly in freezing temperatures for days now, we appreciate you joining us live for the first time here on "The Story Is" and we hope you're able to stay safe. We will go back to you if necessary, but we appreciate all the work you've been doing all day. Thank you so much.

Joining me now here live on set is Steve Moore, CNN Law Enforcement Contributor, retired FBI Supervisory Special Agent. Steve, good to see you. Thanks for being here. As we continue to sort of think about what's happening there right now, as somebody who's done some of this before been a part of law enforcement, observe this.

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What do you see happening right now?

STEVE MOORE, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CONTRIBUTOR: Well, it's a smaller group of people than I would have anticipated. What actually just floors me is that for at least a half an hour, and by my count, closer to an hour, we didn't see any Minneapolis Police Department officers there. None. As --

MICHAELSON: We just saw some, at least in that shot, rolling up right by where Omar is. Yeah.

MOORE: Yes. Yes. And now, now they're showing up. And the first time I saw him was about 15 minutes ago. The line was held by state police. And so my feeling on this is that you couldn't have that crowd at a hotel trying to enter the hotel, disturbing the piece for hundreds of people around there, and have the police not know about it. This was the police, in my opinion, ignoring it. There wasn't a single police car for about a half an hour. And that's not an accident.

MICHAELSON: It is interesting when law enforcement chooses to act and when not to.

MOORE: Right.

MICHAELSON: How the federal agents, when they get a snow ball thrown at them, react one way, the state agents react a different way, and when they want to, if they wanted, right now, to put all those people in handcuffs they would have the ability to do that. They first try to move them out, try to get them to leave on their own. There is a process every jurisdiction does this a little differently, but there are similar tactics that are used all around the country for crowd control. The big hope for them is, frankly, to deescalate the situation right to get these people out and to not have the --

MOORE: Well, that's for the state, that's for the state and city police. You want to deescalate for feds, what they're trying to do is protect their property. Different strategy, different tactics, and it's a totally different operation completely.

MICHAELSON: So obviously, the big headline of this day, we all woke up to this video that shows a different camera angle of what happened. It's graphic video, in terms of the shooting that started all of these protests. We see an officer holding a cell phone walking up to this to good here, and then interacting and sharing, exchanging words. We see her try to drive off. It appears that she hits him, and then she is shot. What goes through your mind when you see this video? How does this change this whole story for you?

MOORE: Up until this point, I was keep -- I wasn't absolutely ready to come out and say that this, in my opinion, was probably a good shoot or not a good shoot. There was so much out there and you just couldn't tell. This one leads me to believe that this was likely a legally justified shooting.

MICHAELSON: Legally justified.

MOORE: Right, right. Legally justified means that a reasonable law enforcement officer, not a reasonable person on the street, but a trained law enforcement officer, believed that they were in imminent danger of losing their life or suffering grievous bodily injuries. It doesn't have to be lethal force. If it paralyzes you, that's the type of thing. So I believe at that point, the officer was likely, and a reasonable investigation will find that the officer was within the deadly force policy.

MICHAELSON: That doesn't necessarily mean you should do it right.

MOORE: It doesn't mean that every officer would have and so what I'm saying is not that the officer did wrong necessarily, but people do things differently. Somebody might have tried to get out of the way of the vehicle. It's so many things. Just because there's deadly force authorized doesn't mean it's mandatory.

MICHAELSON: Yeah, you said that in your career, there were three different instances where you feared for your life and thought about shooting someone. You chose not to do it. But can you sort of give those of us who have not been in law enforcement and have not had to go arrest somebody some perspective of what that's like, what it's like to be in that situation.

MOORE: It's hard to explain, but there comes a point when you realize, oh my gosh, this. This could be this. This is it. It is -- MICHAELSON: Meaning, I'm going to die.

MOORE: Yeah, I can remember thinking one time I didn't make my bed. People are going to be walking through my house. Just these things the world slows down and you -- there is no doubt in my mind.

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There was no doubt in my mind at that moment that things had gone terribly wrong, and I was fearful for my life. I had a situation where somebody claimed to be pointing a gun at me under a blanket, and I just didn't believe it was a gun, and so I didn't shoot. There are times when you are authorized and don't, and tragically, there are times when officers have been killed when they didn't.

MICHAELSON: Yeah, it's a split second decision, and it's -- and it -- and obviously it's scrutinized. All this stuff is done in slow motion, but this moment happened like this for both parties.

MOORE: Exactly.

MICHAELSON: Steve Moore, thank you for the perspective. Appreciate it.

MOORE: Thank you.

MICHAELSON: Coming up Iranian is taking to the street to protest their government. Why these spread so quickly?

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Iran is in big trouble. It's a very dangerous place right now, and again, I tell the Iranian leaders, you better not start shooting, because we'll start shooting too.

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MICHAELSON: Another stark warning from President Trump, he has threatened to hit Iran quote where it hurts that uses violence against protesters. Widespread antigovernment demonstrations have raged for nearly two weeks. This is footage from the capitol of Tehran, where some protesters chanted long live the Shah. They called for an end to the Islamic Republic and the Shah's exiled son come back into power. Now these have been Iran's largest protests in years, with demonstrations reported in more than 100 cities. CNN, Jomana Karadsheh reports.

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JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Iran is facing its biggest internal crisis in years as anti-regime protests spread like a wildfire to every single one of its 31 provinces. Here in the city of Mashhad the birthplace of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Protesters take down the Islamic Republic's flag and tear it to pieces.

Dozens of protesters have been killed, 100s injured and 1000s detained, according to activists and human rights groups. But that did not appear to deter Iranians who poured onto the streets of Tehran and other cities. The regime shut down communications with fears now growing that they're once again using the blackout to unleash an even more brutal crackdown.

President Trump has repeated his threat to hit the regime hard if they kill protesters. Chance for the return of the monarchy, something we hadn't heard during previous waves of protests. Some of the demonstrators appear to be heeding the calls of this man, Reza Pahlavi, the eldest son of the last Shah of Iran.

The 65-year-old came to the United States when he was 17 and remained exiled there after his father. The former Shah, was overthrown in The 1979 Islamic revolution. For years, the exiled Crown Prince has sought to present himself as a man who can lead Iran's opposition and rid the country of the repressive theocratic rule.

In a Washington post op ed this week, Pahlavi said he doesn't see protesters chanting his name as a claim to power. Instead, he sees himself as a unifying, transitional leader who would help guide the country from tyranny to democracy, but he is a divisive figure. While he does have the support of many Iranian monarchists who are nostalgic for the days of the Shah, it is unclear just how much support he really has inside the country.

Many Iranians say Pahlavi hasn't set foot in the country in decades. He's too disconnected from the people who have been on the front lines of the battle for freedom and democracy. Jomana Karadsheh, CNN, London.

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MICHAELSON: Joining me live here in LA is Gissou Nia, the Director of Strategic Litigation Project at the Atlantic Council. Thanks so much for coming in. There is a digital blackout. There's internet turned off, but you've still been in touch with people within the country, within your network. What are you hearing from people on the ground?

GISSOU NIA, DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC LITIGATION PROJECT, ATLANTIC COUNCIL: Yeah, we've had a digital blackout for 36 hours. It's incredibly difficult to get videos outside of the country. However, you can have some exchanges. We're finding it increasingly difficult to be able to communicate via WhatsApp or Telegram or the usual means of communication. But what I've heard from firsthand accounts of people who participated in the protests are that there were burned out cars. There were smashed banks. There were signs pulled out, a lot of fires being set, and this is on the protests that happened Thursday evening, and that happened Friday evening, which was the 13th night of protests. So it seems that this is not stopping. MICHAELSON: And keeping the internet off makes it harder to do commerce, which potentially hurts the regime, too. When it comes to the economic situation in the country, President Trump's language is different than any president that we've heard ever on this issue. How is that impacting things on the ground, impacting Iran's thinking, impacting the thinking of protesters?

NIA: Yeah. So one of the differentiating factors in this protests, because we've had successive protests in the country since December 2017, so for about a decade now. But what I would say is different about this time around is that there's a lot of external pressure.

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So if you look at the last round of protests in 2022 most of the senior Islamic Republic of Iran officials who were responsible for the violence at the national level, and the military and the police and so on. Almost one-third of them have been killed by Israel last summer in the 12-day war. So obviously those kinetic means are having, I would assume, some impact on the regime's calculation of what to do next here. And President Trump's pretty pointed threat, I imagine, must be on their mind, especially when coupled with the actions in Venezuela last week.

MICHAELSON: Right. To show that he can come in and do this, which he did literally one week ago tonight at this time. So Iran has never had a democratic election before. We see calls for the Shah's son to come in, which would be return to monarchy. You think that democracy is possible, though?

NIA: I definitely do. I think that a lot of the calls from the people have been about human rights, democracy, freedom. We really don't know what Iran's people want, because they've never been allowed to have a transparent, open political process. It's different than a place like Venezuela, where an opposition candidate was allowed to run in the election. Of course, the election was stolen, but they were allowed to run.

We haven't seen that happen in Iran, however, I would say that there are, there is the machinery in the country for an election, because we've had presidential elections that are really more like selections, because they're not free and fair, but people have exercised the practice of voting. They know what that feels like. And if you could run different candidates from different political parties, I think we'd finally know what the Iranian people want, and the son of the deposed Shah of Iran has said that he would be happy to lead a transition period to such a democracy, so I think we really need to insist on that democracy.

MICHAELSON: Gissou Nia, it is going to be very interesting to see what happens over the weekend and in the days ahead. Clearly an inflection point for Iran. Thank you so much for your perspective.

Coming up as the U.S. teams up with Colombia to combat drug trafficking. CNN, David Coleman gets a closer look on how police forces are tackling narcotics in Latin America. They literally go after cocaine as we ride along with them. It's a fascinating story that's next.

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MICHAELSON: Welcome back "The Story Is" I'm Elex Michaelson. Let's take a look at today's top stories. More than 1000 anti-I.C.E. protests are planned across the U.S. this weekend comes after two separate shootings involving federal agents in Minneapolis and Portland. The protest organizers are calling on people to remain peaceful. They say these demonstrations are in response to the quote, escalation of I.C.E. violence in American communities.

Iran is in a near total communications blackout as a wave of nationwide unrest there continues. Demonstrations started nearly two weeks ago over the failing economy. Supreme Leader accuses protesters of trying to quote please President Trump, who has threatened to intervene if Iranian security forces kill protesters.

Speaking of President Trump, he has escalated his threats towards Greenland as well. He told reporters on Friday that he aimed to make a deal to acquire the Arctic territory, adding, if we don't do it the easy way, we're going to do it the hard way. Washington based diplomats for Greenland and Denmark met with White House officials on Thursday, while Greenland continues to insist it's not for sale.

President Trump invited Colombia's President to visit the White House sometime in the near future. The two have recently clashed on a variety of issues, including drug trafficking and the U.S. ousting of Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro, but Colombia still remains one of the U.S.'s closest allies at combating narcotics in the region.

CNNs, David Culver has an exclusive look at how that works.

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DAVID CULVER, CNN SENIOR U.S. NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: What you're looking at here might look like military special forces, but these are Colombia's National Police, anti-Narcotics Officers, and they're prepping for a jungle mission near the country's southern border. This operation comes at a moment of regional tension. You can almost feel it at times, with uncertainty in neighboring Venezuela spilling over after the U.S. capture of Nicolas Maduro. And as President Donald Trump and Gustavo Petro are increasingly trading sharp words with one another. Some are asking just how serious is Washington about confronting Colombia next.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: From the air, the scale is overwhelming, vast stretches of coca the wrong greeting for cocaine spread across the jungle below us. So why don't they just eradicate it all?

CULVER: He points out, all of these plots of coca are protected by armed groups. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Which is why police say they focus on sites they believe will have the biggest impact on disrupting drug production and trafficking.

CULVER: All of this is coca, he points out, and all of this the officers say, is on unclaimed jungle land. This essentially is a kitchen or laboratory where they do the first step of producing cocaine from the coca plant.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As police secure the area, locals begin to gather. Some out of curiosity. Others, police say, may work these fields for criminal organizations.

CULVER: I mean there's a few people who are standing around us. They then go through the process of determining what if any involvement they might have had with this, and then we'll process accordingly.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Officers quickly set the lab on fire to keep it from being used again.

CULVER: And police stress to us that none of this would be possible without the support of the U.S., from training to technology to equipment and most importantly, intel.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That cooperation is something police bring up repeatedly, and it's something we ask about directly.

CULVER: Between the FBI, DEA, are you still working together?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The General tells us support from the U.S. has not changed, and he describes the relationship with U.S. law enforcement as the best it's ever been, helping drive what police describe as historic drug seizures in 2025. He warns that without that partnership, criminal organizations would win.

We see just how vital that U.S. investment is at a training base outside of Bogota.

CULVER: All the weapons he points out are from the U.S.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The gear they wear, the buildings that house them here, nearly all of it, they say made or paid for -- by the USA. Back on the mission. It's time to go. We're rushed on to the Black Hawk, part of the anti-narcotics police fleet. They say they have more than two dozen of them, all provided by the United States. As we pull out smoke rises from the jungle below, one of several cocaine labs police say they destroyed on this deployment.

CULVER: They're all now returning after what was for them a successful mission. And they reiterate to us over and over, the decades of cooperation with U.S. law enforcement remains essential for them to stop drugs leaving Colombia and entering places like the U.S. and beyond. Even if politics at the very top are telling a different story on the ground, they stress the relationship for now, at least is strong.

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MICHAELSON: And David joins us now, what an experience that must have been doing this reporting. And David, it certainly seemed like Columbia was really trying to send a message to President Trump through you.

DAVID CULVER, CNN SENIOR U.S. NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: There was no question they wanted this to be seen not only by the entirety of the world, but probably Elex, most especially the U.S. and Washington in particular. Yeah, this was a message they wanted to put out there, because they feel like the criticism that was coming from Washington early in the week, mind you it has changed in the past 48 hours or so. But it was suggesting that Colombia was doing next to nothing when it comes to trying to stop drugs from leaving the country.

Now the reality is they are leaving at great numbers still. I mean, you saw from the aircraft looking down just field after field of coca, and so that is a concern that obviously U.S. officials reference. But at the same time, they're trying to go after specific targets, the ones that they think will have the biggest impact. And they say that their relationship with the DEA is strong. And DEA sources confirm that to our colleague Evan Perez as well. The concern, though, Elex, is that if political tensions keep going forward, could it worsen? They say that is a possibility. But right now, it's not trickling to the ground level.

MICHAELSON: Well, it was one week exactly during this broadcast that we first broke in with the news that this raid was under way in Venezuela. Can't believe it's been a week. Seems like so much has happened in the meantime. You've got a big special this week, the whole story, an entire hour special looking into that. What can we expect on Sunday night?

CULVER: You, by the way, carry that capture live. I was woken up early in the morning East Coast time to mobilize and get my way down to Colombia to try to get as close as possible to the border. We take you inside the raid. We give you a sense of what played out over the past week or so. We try to break it down in a way, because there's so many different parts that are moving here, and it's tough to really understand the sequence that played out, especially as the attitudes between certain world leaders are changing seemingly every hour on the hour. And so what we do here is we break it down, not only in which has transpired over the past week, but then we go back several decades, and we try to put into context. Why the region is reacting the way it is, why the other countries are seemingly really uneasy with how the U.S. is moving forward with some of these actions, but at the same time, others feel it's actually the right move.

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So you get a sense of really what this raid and this capture and now this moment means not only for Venezuela, but for the rest of the world, Elex. MICHAELSON: Well, David Culver, who in the course of a week, headed into that zone, put all this together, flew back and now has an hour documentary done pretty incredible reporting along the way.

CULVER: It's been busy.

MICHAELSON: Thank you so much, and you can check out David's special, the whole story with Anderson Cooper, Sunday right here on CNN.

Coming up when the Golden Globe award show airs on Sunday, viewers will see a familiar face in the hosting role. We sit down with Nikki Glaser.

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MICHAELSON: U.S. stock market finished strong Friday, the jump driven by big gains in tech company Broadcom and other chip makers S&P 500 reached a record high. The Dow also scored a new record high to end the first full week of trading in the new year. Now all of that despite the fact that the U.S. economy added just 50,000 jobs in December, marking one of the weakest years of job growth in decades. This was below expectations.

In total, the U.S. added about 580,000 jobs in 2025 the slowest annual growth seen outside of a recession year since 2003. Economists say hiring was propped up by health and leisure, while wages in other sectors stalled.

Sports now the Trae Young era of Washington Wizards basketball has begun. The four time all-star point guard formally introduced to fans in a video at Friday's game in New Orleans. His trade from the Atlanta Hawks was confirmed on Friday at a press conference earlier. Young praised the D.C. franchise as quote, a big market, saying the trade offers him a fresh opportunity. Trae has been sidelined since December due to injuries. There has been no timeline yet for his first game as a Washington Wizard.

College football national championship now set after Indiana University trounced the University of Oregon in the Peach Bowl. It was an all-star performance from Hoosier quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza, who had five touchdown passes. Indiana defense also had three turnovers and two fourth down stops. Final score in this one a route 56 to 22.

Hoosiers now just one game away from winning it all, they will face off against the University of Miami for the national championship on January 19 in Miami. The first time a college team has ever hosted the national championship game.

Well, this weekend here in Southern California, Nikki Glaser is back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What does the pre-show pep talk from Nikki to Nikki sound like?

NIKKI GLASER, HOST GLODEN GLOBE AWARDS: I'm strong. I'm prepared. This is easy.

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MICHAELSON: CNN Stephanie Elam talks to the Golden Globe host. She prepares to fill that role for a second year in a row.

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MICHAELSON: NASA says the four astronauts aboard the SpaceX Crew-11 mission will likely splash down early next Thursday, Eastern Time, after an undisclosed medical issue affected a crew member cutting short their mission. NASA announced the crew will undock from the International Space Station on Wednesday, a month ahead of schedule. It's unclear which astronaut has the issue. It's the first time a crew has returned early from the ISS because of a health concern.

Comedian Nikki Glaser says she is prepared to handle the hosting duties for a second time at the Golden Globes on Sunday. CNN Stephanie Elam sat down with her to talk about her jokes, stars and how she decides who gets roasted.

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STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What does the pre-show pep talk from Nikki to Nikki sound like?

NIKKI GLASER, HOST GLODEN GLOBE AWARDS: I'm strong. I'm prepared. This is easy. You say it all day 1000s of times, muttering to yourself, and you just start to believe it.

ELAM: Perhaps it's easier to believe for Nikki Glaser, who is back after universal praise last year as host of The Golden Globes.

GLASER: And I want people to tune in, to be like, what will she say? What might they bleep? What might happen? Who's going to fall?

ELAM: But the rose comic has learned, Julia Roberts, who will be in the room, might be untouchable.

GLASER: But I found out she's a very protected entity in this world, from running jokes around town and having people get very, very upset. I found a way to make a joke when which she is involved. But it wasn't easy.

ELAM: Glaser revealing during our chat on a Hollywood backlot, she limits the roasting to the nominees, except this joke last year about Selena Gomez is now husband. GLASER: And Benny Blanco is here because of the genie who granted him that wish. Ben, lucky guy.

ELAM: Glaser tells me she got permission from Blanco ahead of time because she considers the less famous to be off limits. Stars like Leo and Clooney. That's another story.

GLASER: I don't have these people's numbers. I'm not disconnected, and I don't even know that I want to text them that, because it would just, I think they would just be like, no, don't do that. But I think if I think if I could just do it, I can get away with it and I just avoid them the rest of my career.

ELAM: Not much is off limits. She says, even the cancelation of Stephen Colbert and other controversy at CBS.

GLASER: I mean, I'm on CBS. Do you bite the hand that feeds you? Maybe a little bit.

ELAM: Last year you talked a little bit about politics right after the election?

GLASER: Yeah.

ELAM: One or 19 more things have happened since then. Is that going to factor into your show?

GLASER: Of course, there's so few things TVs and -- TV shows and movies that we've all consumed, but like we're all consuming. It is all consuming the news, so I got to use those when I can get them.

ELAM: Glacier says she takes her job seriously, so viewers don't have to.

GLASER: We are living in a hellscape at times, and it's award shows used to feel like escapes from all that, where we could just celebrate this royalty that we've crowned in our country for whatever reason, because they're good at pretending on screen. And it's all ridiculous. But so what we really enjoy it, and let's just like, escape into it and have some fun.

ELAM: Stephanie Elam, CNN, Los Angeles.

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MICHAELSON: All right. Thanks to Stephanie and the Golden Globes air Sunday on CBS. I'm Elex Michaelson. Thanks for watching "The Story Is"