MAJOR GARRETT:
00:00:00
We turn now to Ed O'Keefe at the White House. Ed, we have some brand-new reporting from our colleague, Camilo Montoya-Galvez, about the status of Customs and Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino. What do we know? We can report now, CBS News has learned, that Bovino is departing Minneapolis imminently, as are many other CBP agents, and Bovino, at least, has been relieved of his command in Minneapolis. He remains in charge of operations across the country. The White House said as much earlier today, but when directly asked whether he would be leaving Minneapolis or relieved of his duties there, they wouldn't directly get into that. Now we have learned, in fact, that is happening. So there, perhaps, is some accountability for what has happened over the weekend. We had the call this morning between the president and Governor Walz. After weeks of nationwide, cross-country finger pointing at each other over this, they have finally spoken, and it appears now it's led to some progress. Bovino will be leaving. Other CBP officers will be leaving. Doesn't mean Immigrations and Customs Enforcement-- which, remember, had been in the lead here trying to root out those undocumented immigrants that they were pursuing. But operations would continue in that regard. And now we have Tom Homan, who is ostensibly known as the White House border czar, going into Minneapolis to not only oversee operations when it comes to those ongoing immigration operations but then the broader Trump administration goal of rooting out alleged fraud in blue states, beginning with Minnesota, after weeks of renewed scrutiny thanks to conservative commentators online exposing concerns about daycare centers and other ways that state funding has gone out through the federal government's grants and payments to the state. That will continue with Homan overseeing it all. And, Ed, the president said on social media that Tom Homan, his border czar, will report directly to him. Help the audience read between the lines, what that might suggest about Homan, Mr. Bovino, Kristi Noem, the DHS secretary, and other immigration officials who have been on the scene there for some period of time. Yeah, this was the first indication this morning, Major, that something would, indeed, be up here, that the White House was reacting to the bipartisan outrage expressed in the wake of the shooting death over the weekend. Not only does that mean Homan is bypassing Secretary Noem, not only does it mean that Bovino is on his way out of Minneapolis, it also suggests that Homan goes directly to the president and not through Stephen Miller, the deputy chief of staff who's overseeing policy who, of course, has taken the lead on the aggressive immigration enforcement policy that's been put in place over the past year but who was also among those, Miller was over the weekend, making baseless accusations about the victim here without an investigation having unfolded first. And it is that rhetoric that so alarmed the White House that this morning in the midst of this snowstorm and the snow day that Washington is having, they called on the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, to convene all of us and to make clear that the president didn't agree with some of the rhetoric that was coming from those top officials. I think we have a part of her reaction to all of it that we can play here. Take a listen. Let's be clear about the circumstances which led to that moment on Saturday. This tragedy occurred as a result of a deliberate and hostile resistance by Democrat leaders in Minnesota. For weeks, Governor Walz and the mayor, Jacob Frey, and other elected Democrats were spreading lies about federal law-enforcement officers who are risking their lives daily to remove the worst criminal illegal aliens from our streets-- murderers, rapists, pedophiles, human traffickers, and gang members. So, again, trying to get at the underlying concerns the administration has had, but they went to great lengths today to distance the president from those statements over the weekend. And now we're seeing some of the results of that decision making here at the White House, removing Gregory Bovino, head of CBP, from Minneapolis, sending in Tom Homan, and the lines of communication between the president and governor are now open. Major.
