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Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), Is Interviewed About Trump Rolls Out Immigration Agenda With Lightning Speed; Trump Speaks In NC Ahead Of Tour Of Disaster Zone; Hamas Publishes Names Of 4 Hostages To Be Released Saturday. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired January 24, 2025 - 11:00   ET

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

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[11:00:30]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, good morning to you. You are live in the CNN Newsroom on this Friday. I'm Pamela Brown in Washington.

We are following breaking news this hour. You are looking at live pictures. President Trump just arrived in western North Carolina. Any moment he's expected to be briefed on recovery efforts after the catastrophic flooding there for Hurricane Helene. We're going to bring it to you live.

Also this hour, immigration crackdown. The White House saying the deportation of migrants on military aircraft has begun.

And meantime, the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, says ICE agents, quote, raided a business there. He's talking to reporters shortly. So, of course, we'll bring that to you live. So much happening this morning.

But first, let's stay on the breaking news, the Trump's administration -- Trump administration's immigration crackdown. Joining us now is Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware. He's on the Judiciary Appropriations Committee. He's in the Border Safety Committee, as well as Foreign Relations. Lots of committees there.

I want to talk about immigration here, though, first, Senator. President Trump's first week in office has been defined in part by an immigration crackdown. And the White House put out these pictures to reflect that priority, using a military plane to deport roughly 70 people. I believe we have the pictures we can show. Here it is right here.

This is, of course, what the White House wants you to see, to show that they are doing, you know, following through what they said they would do on the campaign trail. What do you think about military resources like aircraft being used for this effort, Senator?

SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-DE): Well, Pamela, thanks for a chance to be on with you. Here in the Capitol, we are moving ahead with a vote probably late tonight on President Trump's nominee to lead the U.S. Military, Pete Hegseth. And I think it will be a very close vote because there's real questions about his experience, his qualifications and his character.

There has been a blizzard of executive orders from President Trump, some of them directly related to issues like border security that he ran on, many others that will do nothing to reduce prices or improve the safety and security of the American people. Renaming mountains and renaming the Gulf of Mexico.

And so, frankly, I am waiting to see exactly how President Trump carries out his promises to impose double digit tariffs on our closest allies and neighbors, Canada and Mexico, and to use resources of the federal government to speed up deportations.

Broadly speaking, Pamela, if President Trump focuses on deporting dangerous criminals, those who've committed additional crimes in the United States against Americans, I think that will be broadened bipartisan support for their deportation. To the extent he uses additional resources to terrorize communities here in the United States that include families who are hardworking and who contribute to our economy, I think that will not have broad support.

BROWN: So, bottom line, what you're saying is as long as they're -- they're criminals and they've, you know, have a record of that, you're OK with that. But if they're rounding up criminals and others who are here illegally but haven't committed crimes, you're not OK with just deploying them is that --

COONS: I think there was -- Pamela, I think there was a strong message in this election that Americans want our border to be secure and would like to see, deserve to see those who've committed crimes, particularly violent crimes in the United States, deported. And there is a significant backlog of those deportations.

If you look back at the record of the end of the Biden administration, they were deporting month after month the same number or more than were deported at the end of the previous Trump administration. There is a significant backlog. Deporting people from the United States is complex and expensive, and not every country will accept their citizens when we attempt to deport them.

There's a lot to work through here. And I joined a dozen other senators in sending a letter to President Trump urging him to find bipartisan paths forward to resolve our broken immigration system and secure our border and improve public safety.

BROWN: How much money do you think Congress should give the administration to carry out its priorities on immigration? As you noted, the results of this election reflected that American people want more, you know, safety and security at the border and beyond.

[11:05:00]

COONS: The -- Pamela, the bipartisan bill that Senators Lankford, Sinema and Murphy put together and that I intended to vote for last year would have invested billions more in increasing deportation flights and increasing our detection at the border. The capacity of the Border Patrol to detect illicit drugs like fentanyl coming into the U.S. would have increased the total personnel for immigration courts.

That requires a bipartisan piece of legislation because it would be spending new money. I think it'd be a great thing for us to take up and pass that piece of legislation that was only blocked last year because President, now President Trump urged Republicans not to pass it. There would still be, I think, bipartisan support for passing that key piece of border security legislation.

BROWN: I want to ask you about this memo we've obtained showing the Trump administration is targeting this parole program that has allowed certain nationalities like Venezuelans, Haitians to come into the U.S. legally. Some of them preside in your state of Delaware. So basically, the U.S. allowed these people to come in legally under Biden. Now the Trump people are saying, we don't care. They need to go back. What do you think?

COONS: Look, I think what exactly the Trump administration is going to do and what its impact will be on those who came here knowingly, legally, you know, through pathways like refugees. We're going to have to see exactly what actions he takes. One of the things I've been alarmed by is he has called a halt to all the refugee flights for Afghans who served alongside American forces or who served in support of our mission in Afghanistan for 20 years.

One family I'm familiar with was cleared to come to the United States. They'd had a full background check. They'd been vetted to come here as refugees. That's now been stopped because of President Trump's order stopping all refugee flights into the United States. There's a long standing program that focuses on religious minorities in Iran.

So these are Christians and Jews, principally in Iran, who are being oppressed by the Iranian government. They get vetted. They get cleared through one of our European embassies and then come to the United States, a few hundred a year. I've made a specific pitch for these two programs to continue, but it is too early for us, Pamela, to know exactly what it is that the Trump administration will be doing on refugees and on asylum and on deportations.

BROWN: I want to ask you mentioned Pete Hegseth at the beginning who is Trump's pick to lead DoD. Trump today talked about whether he has the votes. Of course, you know, Senator Collins and Murkowski, doesn't. He had said, you know, Mitch McConnell is usually a no. We'll see kind of thing. Do you think Hegseth has the votes to get confirmed? What -- what is your understanding of where things for his confirmation? And Also Tulsi Gabbard, RFK Jr. and Kash Patel.

COONS: This will be a very late vote tonight on Pete Hegseth. He has very limited management experience. And what experience he has been unsuccessful. He's led two small veterans organizations and led them poorly. There's also, of course, been repeated allegations about character problems, substance abuse and sexual assault.

In my view, this is the largest and most important federal agency. It has a budget above $850 billion a year. There's close to 3 million men and women --

BROWN: OK.

COONS: -- who serve in our active duty military reserves. I do not think Pete Hegseth has the skills, the experience or the character to be the secretary of Defense. I respect his military service. But I think this will be a close vote and I don't know if he's got the votes tonight.

BROWN: OK.

COONS: We'll find out about 9 o'clock.

BROWN: Senator Coons, thank you. And -- and to be clear --

COONS: Thank you.

BROWN: -- he denies the sexual assault accusation. But let's listen here to President Trump.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: -- it is. But we're going to take over and we're going to do a good job. We're going to assign Mr. Whatley, who's fantastic, frankly, and the governor and everybody else that's going to work. We're going to supply the money. We're going to supply a lot of the money. Maybe you have to chip in something. You'll chip in a little something like maybe 25 percent or whatever.

But we're going to get it done as quickly as we can. And we want to take care of the people of North Carolina. It's so interesting. Everybody's talking about California and that's a mess. But I said I'm not going to California until I stop in North Carolina. So here we are. We're going to go visit the site. And we're going to work with probably three of the congressmen, Republican congressmen who've been fantastic, whose areas have been affected.

And with Michael Whatley, the governor and whoever else is, you know, we decide to get involved, probably less FEMA, because FEMA just hasn't done the job. And we're looking at the whole concept of FEMA. I like, frankly, the concept when North Carolina gets hit, the governor takes care of it. When Florida gets hit, the governor takes care of it, meaning the state takes care of it. They have a group of people come in from an area that don't even know where they're going in order to solve immediately a problem is something that never worked for me.

[11:10:16]

But this is probably one of the best examples of it not working. And there's been some others, like in Louisiana, et cetera. So we're going to be doing something on FEMA that I think most people agree. I'd like to see the states take care of disasters. Let the state take care of the tornadoes and the hurricanes and all of the other things that happen. And I think you're going to find it a lot less expensive. You'll do it for less than half and you're going to get a lot quicker response.

So that seems to be the recommendation. But we'll be making that recommendation over the next couple of weeks. We're going to go to the site now and we're going to figure out a plan -- a plan for really demolition and cleaning because not a lot has been done. And we're very disappointed in the Biden administration, but we're going to make up for lost time. And I said I'd do that. And this is about the earliest we could possibly be here. And we're honored to be here.

This has been a great state. They're great people and they've really been mishandled. But it's all -- this group is going to be great and we're going to get it taken care of. Any questions?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How would you respond --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- make those changes to FEMA? Do you expect to ask Congress for additional aid for North Carolina and California?

TRUMP: Yes. It will be direct. In other words, the aid will go through us. So rather than going through FEMA, it will go through us. And I think maybe this is a good place to start because, and in all fairness to the governor, in all fairness to everybody else, FEMA was not on the ball and we're going to turn it all around. Yes?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot -- a lot of Americans think that this is symbolic of what your campaign was all about, America first, putting your part -- priorities to Americans, even going to California, where their policies might have been one of the biggest reasons why they've had these problems. But you're putting American people first. Your thoughts on that?

TRUMP: We are. Thank you. I like that question. Boy, I want more questions like that. That's even a statement. Thank you very much.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.

TRUMP: He's a good man, that guy. And he's also a very professional reporter, I have to say. Thank you very much. Yes, we're putting America first. We're putting in this case, North Carolina and California. We're going to do a good job in California. That is a disaster. Like, I don't know if we've ever seen anything like it, frankly.

They say the biggest in the history of California. I think has anything bigger than that happened in the whole country ever. It looks like. I don't want to say what it looks like, but you know what I'm going say. It looks like something hit it. And we won't talk about what hit it. But it is a bad, bad situation.

And I guess I'm going to meet with some government officials. But I mean, much more importantly and in California, just to revert to it for a second, millions of gallons of water are waiting to be poured down through already the half pipes that are already built. I mean, they've been up for 40 years. And about 20 years ago they turned off the water.

And it's the water comes from the Pacific Northwest. Some of it comes out of Canada and it flows there and it probably has flowed there for a million years. And they turned it off and they routed out to the Pacific. And in the meantime, you don't have water in the hydrants. You don't have water in the sprinkler systems. It's the craziest thing I've ever seen.

And everyone's trying to figure out why aren't they turning it back. They say it's the delta smelt that say fish, but I find that hard to believe. But we'll figure it out. And without -- and without doing that, you're going to continue to have problems.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, what are you prepared to do, sir, if OPEC doesn't respond to your call to cut oil prices?

TRUMP: Well, we want to see OPEC cut the price of oil. And that will automatically stop the tragedy that's taking place in Ukraine. It's a butchering tragedy for both sides, by the way. Tremendous number of Russian soldiers are dead, tremendous number of Ukrainian soldiers, and a lot of people are dead from the bombing of the cities.

But right now it's just bullets whacking and hitting men, mostly men, almost, in all cases, men. And over a million men are killed and they're lo -- they're losing thousands of people a week. It's crazy. It's a crazy war. And it never would have happened if I was president, would never have happened. This is crazy that it happened. But we want to stop it.

Now, one way to stop it quickly is for OPEC to stop making so much money and to drop the price of oil because they have it nice and high. And if you have it high, that war is not going to end so easily. So OPEC ought to get on the ball and they ought to drop the price of oil and that war will stop right away.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, funding to Los Angeles because of its sanctuary city policy?

[11:15:02]

TRUMP: I want to see two things in Los Angeles, voter I.D. so that the people have a chance to vote, and I want to see the water be released and come down into Los Angeles and throughout the state. Those are the two things. After that, I will be the greatest president that California have -- has ever seen.

I want the water to come down and come down to Los Angeles and also go out to all the farmland that's barren and dry. You know, they have land that they say is the equivalent of the land in Iowa, which is about as good as there is anywhere on Earth. The problem is it's artificial because they artificially stop the water from going onto the land.

So I want two things. I want voter I.D. for the people of California, and they all want it. Right now, you have, no, you don't have voter I.D. People want to have voter identification. You want to have proof of citizenship. Ideally, you have one day voting. But I just want voter ideas to start. And I want the water to be released. And they're going to get a lot of help from the U.S. Thank you very much. I'll see you little while. We'll see you at the site. We'll see you at the site.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, can you tell us more about the deportation flights. Where are they going from? Where are they going to?

TRUMP: Well, the deportations going very well. We're getting the bad, hard criminals out. These are murderers. These are people that have been as bad as you get, as bad as anybody you've seen. We're taking them out first. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, press. Move through the grass.

BROWN: All right. I want to bring in CNN chief national affairs correspondent, Jeff Zeleny. The President speaking there to reporters in Asheville, North Carolina, before he surveys the damage. Jeff, he said several things, but, you know, once again he is criticizing FEMA and now saying that any disaster aid to help places like North Carolina will go through them, meaning the White House, I'm assuming, and not FEMA.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Pam, President Trump was saying that he believes that disaster aid should go through the states, should go through the governors of North Carolina, Florida, you name it. The challenge and problem with that, of course, is funding.

Think back to disasters over the years. Let's start with Hurricane Katrina. Without FEMA, without federal funding, states simply would not have the ability to do that. So the idea of throwing out FEMA, that simply is not a workable one. And I'm -- I'm guessing that most even Republican Congress people would agree.

However, that does not mean that there have not been challenges with FEMA. Both Democrats and Republicans agree on that. But big picture here, the President is arriving here in North Carolina for his first stop, his first official act as president outside of Washington. And that is significant.

He said he wanted to come here to North Carolina, of course, to state that he won by three points before going to California, of course, a state that he lost. Now, politics should not be part of this. There are people who are still hurting in the western part of North Carolina here and elsewhere where their voter registration does not matter. They simply want help.

And there are some concerns about FEMA. However, the President is going to be going into a briefing here shortly with members of the -- the North Carolina delegation. And then shortly after that, he'll be visiting one of the many sites here that are still recovering. He is blaming Democrats for that and blaming the Biden administration. Of course now, though, Pam, it's his burden because he indeed is president.

BROWN: Right. And it is interesting because with Sean Hannity on "Fox," he did talk about how the state should be more responsible for their disaster relief because, you know, he -- he said in his words that FEMA wasn't doing its job. Of course, there are valid questions to be asked about FEMA. But, you know, FEMA has provided relief to places like North Carolina and elsewhere.

But today he was say -- saying that the aid will go through us, which was just notable to me that he -- he's putting that out there, too. He also talked about California because there's been a lot of talk about California and the aid that it could get and the conditions that could be tied to it.

And he made this claim about water being withheld and have -- it having to do with the smelt fish. Experts are saying, Jeff, as you well know, that's not exactly the case. Tell us more about that.

ZELENY: Look, that's not the case. And the reality here, we are going to see this play out throughout the day. And people on the ground do not necessarily want to hear about the political arguments of it. But that is one thing that President Trump has been saying. Of course, you'll remember, Pam, he's been at odds at loggerheads, if you will, with California Governor Gavin Newsom for quite some time over the smelt.

That is not something that blocked the water. Of course, there were issues there. There's no doubt about it. There are going to be investigations. Was there enough water available? But it's not as simple as saying that the governor has blocked the water coming down. But here in North Carolina, at least, as the President heads over to a briefing here, again, as you said, there are questions about FEMA and primarily its housing.

[11:19:58]

The housing vouchers, will they be extended? Are they the right kind of housing vouchers? Some people have been in hotels as opposed to living sort of on their land in a temporary housing facilities in -- in -- on -- on their property. So we will see how this goes. But this simply is not as easy to say as the money will run through us.

But the heart of all this is, this is going to be part of the federal disaster bill that Congress is going to have to work out. So in the coming weeks and months, that will be a central part of what his administration is guiding this through. So certainly very easy to blame this on the Biden administration. And again, there have been problems with FEMA on both sides. But going forward, this is the burden of the Trump administration to work out. Pamela?

BROWN: Jeff Zeleny, thank you so much.

And we have some more breaking news just in to CNN. Hamas has just published the names of four Israeli hostages that it plans to release tomorrow as part of the Gaza ceasefire deal. I want to go straight to CNN's Bianna Golodryga in Tel Aviv Bianna, what does -- who -- who I should say does Hamas plan to release?

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN SENIOR GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, Pamela, there's a bit of a snag here in the original deal that was agreed upon between Hamas and Israel in terms of who would be the second group of hostages to be released. This was expected to be four female hostages. In their agreement, Hamas was to release all civilian hostages. We know there are two civilian hostages that remain in Gaza.

So it was widely expected that at least one of those hostages would be on the list in addition to IDF female observers, three of them. Instead, Hamas has now published a list of four IDF female observers out of five that are currently held hostage in Gaza. And that has created quite a dilemma here in Israel because the prime minister's office has this list of names. They have been published for others in this country to see.

We are not publishing those names right now. But it does beg the question of what does this mean for those civilian hostages. The prime minister's office now released a statement saying a list for the release of hostages has been received through the mediators. Israel's response will be provided later. Now, the two civilian hostages are Arbel Yehud, who is 29 years old and was kidnapped from her kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7th of 2023, along with Shiri Bevis, is the other female hostage in Gaza right now.

So the fact that neither one of them appear to be on this list is causing a delay in response of getting these lists -- these names public and so that we can bring them to you. And also a very twisted "Sophie's Choice" kind of dilemma here for the government questioning what to do next. Do they follow through or do they call Hamas out for breaking the rules here? Hamas, in turn for these IDF soldiers, would be getting 50 Palestinian prisoners in exchange instead of the 30 for civilian hostages. Pamela?

BROWN: All right. Thank you for bringing us the latest there, Bianna.

And I also want to go to Aaron David Miller, who I believe is here with us now to give some analysis on this what Bianna just said about the deal. And it's hit a bit of a snag.

AARON DAVID MILLER, FORMER STATE DEPT. MIDDLE EAST NEGOTIATOR: Yes, thanks for having me, Pam. Look, this is not an agreement between Israel and Switzerland, between a close U.S. ally in an organization which successive administrations it's categorized as a foreign terrorist organization. So there are going to be delays, significant bumps in implementation. That proved true last weekend when there was a delay with respect to turning over the names.

This time around, we're talking about three civilian, excuse me, military spotters, female spotters, observers who were in Gaza in the hours before Hamas's attack, and two additional females that the Israelis hope the -- would be on the list, one, as Bianna said, Arbel Yehud, the other Shiri Bevis. And Hamas is now claiming that one Arbel Yehud is not held by Hamas by -- but by Islamic -- Palestine Islamic Jihad.

One of the key problems in this negotiation has been the unwillingness of a homage to designate and identify which hostages are living and which -- which are dead. So this is going to continue to be -- it's a human -- it's a human tragedy. It reflects the profound suspicion, mistrust between the parties. I suspect whether it's delayed or not, at least the first phase of this agreement will probably be implemented. [11:24:39]

BROWN: All right, Aaron David Miller, thank you for providing your take on this. We'll be right back.

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BROWN: President Trump just arrived in western North Carolina and spoke to reporters. I want to bring in CNN's Daniel Dale to fact check what we just heard from the President. I was texting with Governor Newsom's director of communications, Izzy Gardon, about what he claimed with the water being withheld in California. And he texted back, quote, the President is deeply confused. What's the bottom line here? What are the facts?

DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: It's possible that state and -- state and local officials in California made a whole host of errors in preparing and responding to these wildfires. So this isn't to absolve them. But the fact is that whatever happened in Los Angeles has nothing to do with a little fish in Northern California like President Trump keeps saying.

He keeps saying or suggesting that there was insufficient water in Los Angeles, you know, those dry hydrants we heard about Pacific Palisades. Because the state didn't send enough water down from Northern California to L.A. instead was doing environmental protection like protecting the delta smelt.

[11:30:04]

I've talked to a bunch of experts in California water policy, complicated stuff. But on this subject it's not --