ICE and DHS Approval Falls After Minneapolis Incident (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: And after this new deadly shooting by ICE agents in Minnesota, and a clear and growing backlash to what people are seeing on the videos coming out, there's also new data suggesting that support for the agency is falling even further. CNN's Harry Enten is running the numbers on this. Harry, how much has changed in terms of ICE and in terms of ICE, you know, then versus now?

[00:00:23] Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not really surprised that President Trump is sending Tom Homan in because ICE, DHS, Kristi Noem, have been a political disaster. Because just take a look here, I mean, ICE's net approval rating during Trump's terms, you go back to term number one, look, it was pretty even at zero points. You go to June 2025, right? That was when all that stuff was going on in Los Angeles. They dropped down, look at this, minus 17 points, way in the basement. But then after Minneapolis, it's even lower, minus 27 points on the net approval rating of ICE. Of course, this all being done under Kristi Noem. So no, what's going on in Minneapolis is not popular at all. What's been going on during this second term under ICE, under the Trump administration, under Kristi Noem, has very much not been popular, and it's only beginning more and more unpopular.

[00:01:12] Speaker 1: What about DHS kind of more broadly?

[00:01:15] Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so you know, we're going to start down low, we'll start with ICE, and then we'll raise it to DHS. And again, it's just the same exact story, right? DHS is doing an excellent or good job, the Department of Homeland Security. During Trump's first term, look where it was in late 2017, right? Right around this point. 59 percent, that's pretty gosh darn good. But look at where it is now in Trump term number two. By late last year, it was down to 42 percent. So this is the same story that we're seeing no matter which poll question we look at. The popularity of ICE, of DHS, has completely fallen under the second Trump term, the second Trump administration, where what we were seeing during Trump's term number one was, hey, ICE, DHS, pretty popular, certainly not unpopular. But all the actions in Minneapolis, in Los Angeles, in these major American cities have been very much rejected by the American people. It has been a political disaster for the second Trump administration.

[00:02:10] Speaker 1: Well, and now, I mean, as Berman was just reading what the president was just sending out, he's now sending in Tom Holman, his border czar into Minnesota, which leads to questions of what about the leadership of the secretary of Homeland Security, who has inserted herself very publicly to be kind of front and center in all of these operations?

[00:02:30] Speaker 2: Yeah. As I said at the top, I just think there's a real reason for it. And that's because Kristi Noem, simply put, Kate, has not been popular. And everything she's done, for the most part, has not been popular. I mean, just look at her net approval rating. In July of 2025, it was minus 11 points. It's actually gotten more unpopular now. It's at minus 16 points. I looked at every single poll that has been conducted on Kristi Noem's popularity. Every single one, the net approval rating has been negative. ICE is negative. DHS is negative. As I said at the top, Kate, this has been an absolute political disaster for the president of the United States. It's not much of a surprise to me if he wants to push Noem to the side, Kate.

[00:03:12] Speaker 1: And remember, this is one of the things, broadly speaking about immigration, and his crackdown of it was something he ran on and won on when it came to the last election. So what a shift in changes has been. Let's see what else the president says today. Harry, these numbers really tell a story today. Thank you.

[00:03:29] Speaker 3: Well, Stephen Collinson joining me now. Good to have you, Stephen. In your latest analysis on CNN Digital, you write, and I quote, a moment of national reckoning is building over the principles embedded in America's moral and legal foundations, which will be extolled this year in celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Just expand, if you will.

[00:03:56] Speaker 4: Yeah, I think what we're seeing here is a classic American clash between federal and state power. These scenes would be particularly shocking anywhere in the world. The fact they're taking place in the United States adds another dimension. First of all, although this incident does not affect the lives of hundreds of millions of Americans, despite the wide scope of the immigration crackdown, everyone can see it on their phones and everyone can see that the federal government, the Trump administration, is not telling the truth about what happened. So that's the first political impact. The second one is there's something particular in the American political psyche, I think, about this tussle between federal and state power. It goes right back to the founding of the United States. ICE agents appear to be infringing, in some ways, the Fourth Amendment, which is about unreasonable search of someone's home. That was one of the fundamental issues that led to the American Revolution, with British troops coming into Americans' homes. So this is something that is very sensitive. We're seeing a lot of concern, I think, not just among Democrats, a very progressive state of Minnesota, but among Republicans, about this attempt by the Trump administration to impose ruthless and unaccountable federal power on a state. And I think that is one of the reasons why this is going to have political ramifications.

[00:05:40] Speaker 3: There are, of course, conflicting accounts of what happened playing out here. And these, of course, do very much play into the issue of public trust, correct?

[00:05:53] Speaker 1: Yeah.

[00:05:54] Speaker 4: And I think if you look at the first one of these incidents, the killing of René Goode less than three weeks ago in Minnesota, the administration did the same thing. When something happens, they immediately come out and call someone a domestic terrorist. They're trying to set the narrative. They argue that the federal officers who are trying to enforce immigration law were threatened. And then it emerges that it appears they weren't. And everyone can see that from these multi-angle videos. There's no expectation, I think, that the government is going to tell the truth about this, as Andrew McCabe said. I think you could also argue that the way they handled the first incident with the killing of René Goode clearly did not send a message to these federal agents from out of state on the streets that they should act with some restraint. Anyone can see that what the administration said about this, that he was showing up to massacre police, doesn't seem to be the truth when they actually see it unfold with their own eyes. But, you know, this is an administration that's never really told the truth. Trump is documented, you know, as having uttered thousands of falsehoods over his 10 years since he came on the national stage.

[00:07:17] Speaker 3: Stephen, while I've got you, I do want to explore the following. There's an interesting angle to this story involving the right to carry a gun. This is a right enshrined in the Second Amendment that Trump and many of his followers staunchly support. Here's what the chief of the border forces had to say about that issue. Have a listen.

[00:07:41] Speaker 5: We respect that Second Amendment right. But those rights don't count when you riot and assault, delay, obstruct and impede law enforcement officers. It's too bad the consequences had to be paid because he injected himself into that crime scene.

[00:08:03] Speaker 3: What are people making of those caveats just presented there around the right to carry a gun in this situation?

[00:08:13] Speaker 4: Well, it's turning a lot of the normal political dialogues on their head and showing somewhat hypocrisy from some of the people in the central government. Alex Pretty had the right to carry a gun, as any American does in Minnesota. He also had the right to carry a concealed weapon. He had the license that you would need to do that. There's no sign, at least on all of the videos we've seen, that he walked up to officers brandishing a gun. And it seems from some of the videos that he was disarmed before he was shot. So that's the circumstances of this. Of course, the National Rifle Association and other pro-gun groups have raised concern. And these are groups that are very powerful in Republican politics about the administration's comments because it appears that what Pretty was doing was fulfilling his constitutional right to carry a weapon. He didn't threaten the police with it or the federal agents. So this, I think, will be a source of pressure on the Republicans and the Trump administration from inside their own coalition, which has already shown signs of weakening since the turn of the year. And, of course, there is the irony of progressive politicians defending Pretty's right to carry a gun and to have a concealed weapon and to show up at a protest, even though in most normal circumstances, many of those leaders would be questioning, I think, the Second Amendment and would prefer tighter restrictions on the use of guns. But I think it just shows there's so much in this story that is quintessentially American in terms of the underlying politics of all this.