NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas - Nightly News Full Broadcast (January 24th)

Episode Date: January 25, 2025

Trump administration's immigration crackdown escalates; In hurricane-ravaged North Carolina, Trump suggests that FEMA should be overhauled or shut down; As bird flu expands, concern grows over communications blackout by federal health agencies; and more on tonight’s broadcast. 

Tonight, President Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration and deportation push. An ice raid in Newark met with fierce criticism. Military planes now sending migrants from the U.S. to Guatemala. And the president's troop surge at the border. New images of the first of 1,500 additional military personnel now on the ground. Plus, President Trump targeting FEMA. Today, visiting Hurricane-ravaged North Carolina and suggesting scrapping the agency altogether. And the critical vote on Defense

Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth. Communications blackout, federal health agencies going quiet, even as bird flu is surging across the country, with egg prices on the rise. Mega retailer Target The new message from the Middle East. The new message from the family of Lyle and Eric Menendez, what their cousin told our Stephanie Gosk about the delay in the effort for resentencing. And the good news in Washington, the pandas meet the public. Tom Costello with some of the cutest ambassadors this country has ever seen. This is NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt. Good evening and welcome.

The new Trump administration making visible strides tonight as it looks to demonstrate the seriousness of its illegal immigration crackdown. Since yesterday, ICE agents carrying out several hundred arrests of undocumented immigrants with criminal histories. Some rounded up during a workplace raid in Newark, New Jersey, overnight that has drawn anger from local officials. While along the U.S.-Mexico border, additional troops are now on the ground to reinforce security. Military air crews also flying deportation missions. The wide net being cast by immigration authorities now apparently includes a deportation of certain migrants who are temporarily allowed in the country under rules established by the Biden administration. It's where we begin tonight with Gabe Gutierrez. Tonight, a dramatic escalation of President Trump's illegal immigration crackdown.

The first of 1,500 extra troops touching down in El Paso, Texas, to support border security. And for the first time, migrants being deported not on charted flights like before, but on military aircraft. Two flights landing this morning in Guatemala. We're getting the bad, hard criminals out. These are murderers. These are people that have been as bad as you get. After a record 10 million illegal border crossings over the past

four years, ICE now ramping up roundups of undocumented immigrants, making 538 arrests yesterday across the country, doubling its daily average in September. Cities including San Francisco, Salt Lake City, and Atlanta. In Newark, New Jersey, this surveillance video appears to show ICE agents making arrests. City officials and immigrant advocates say ICE agents raided this local business, arresting three undocumented immigrants and briefly detaining an American citizen, a military veteran, while they asked him for documentation. They were scrambling up delivery ramps. They were banging down bathroom doors to make sure no one was hiding inside.

ICE doesn't call them raids, but targeted enforcement operations, adding agents sometimes encounter U.S. citizens while conducting field work and may request identification. Do you plan to use city resources to impede ICE? We're not going to participate in what we think is unlawful. Newark's Democratic Mayor Ross Baraka telling us late today there were two more operations in his city where more than a third of the population was born outside the U.S. Donald Trump won this election. What would you say to Trump supporters who are watching this and saying that's what we voted for? They're wrong. I would say you're wrong. You were wrong then and you're wrong now.

Meanwhile, according to this internal memo obtained by NBC News, the Trump administration is reversing another Biden border policy, allowing ICE officials to quickly deport migrants who were legally allowed into the country temporarily under the Biden administration. Back in El Paso, Daniel De La Cruz lives just blocks from the border and praises President Trump for keeping his campaign promise on deportations. America needs to take care of the American people. I'm glad that Trump is in office implementing the law. Meantime, Gabe, you have some new reporting about Mexico's role in all this.

Yes, Lester, two U.S. defense officials tell NBC News that Mexico denied access to a U.S. military deportation plane on Thursday. As we mentioned, two planes landed in Guatemala today. Meanwhile, here in Newark, the mayor says that he expects more deportations over the next few days. All right, Gabe, thank you. And President Trump has arrived in Los Angeles, where he'll be touring areas devastated by wildfires after visiting a North Carolina neighborhood destroyed by Hurricane Helene, where he blasted FEMA's response and suggested closing down the agency. Here's Peter Alexander. President Trump today touring damage and hearing from displaced residents in parts of North Carolina ravaged by Hurricane Helene four months ago. I totally feel like that we have been forgotten.

The president, alongside the first lady, again complaining that FEMA's response has been too slow. Unfortunately, our government failed you, but it wasn't the Trump government. It was a government run by Biden. And floating a potentially dramatic move, eliminating FEMA entirely. I think, frankly, FEMA is not good. FEMA has turned out to be a disaster. I think we're going to recommend that FEMA go away. Instead, proposing the White House send disaster relief directly to states and give governors more control. But a president does not have the power to shut down FEMA and would need Congress to give him the authority to remake or get rid of any agency. FEMA's defenders argue the federal government supports states and has a breadth

of expertise and resources to respond that most states do not have. A top Democrat tonight panning the proposal. I mean, if there's one reason we're one nation under God, it's to deal with disasters. So no, we shouldn't get rid of them. Meanwhile, the president just landing in L.A. to visit the wildfire zone there, greeted by Governor Gavin Newsom on the tarmac after repeatedly attacking California's Democratic leaders over the state's response to the disaster and hours after detailing a pair of demands before he will offer more federal aid to the state. I want to see two things in Los Angeles, voter ID 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. Newsom's office says other states don't require voter ID, and California pumps as much water now as it could under Trump's first term policies. Writing conditioning aid for American citizens is wrong. All of it with a final Senate confirmation vote expected tonight on Pentagon pick Pete Hegseth. Earlier in NBC News review of records from Hegseth's divorce from his second wife, Samantha, includes a court ordered agreement precluding either of them from saying anything publicly that would disparage the other. Since her ex-husband's nomination, Samantha has commented publicly about him only once in response to a request from NBC News for comment on an affidavit by his former sister-in-law, Danielle Hegseth. Samantha told NBC News, there was no physical abuse in my marriage. And Peter, let's turn back to FEMA

for a moment. The president is moving forward with his plan to eventually overhaul it. Yeah, that's exactly right, Lester. A White House official tells me tonight that the president is signing an executive order that will establish a task force to review and provide some of its suggestions to Donald Trump about what to do with the Emergency Management Agency. All right. Peter Alexander, thank you. Also tonight, bird flu surging, hitting poultry farms hard and sending egg prices soaring, just as the Trump administration cuts off public communication from the CDC and other federal health agencies. Here's Maggie Vespa. Tonight, a communications blackout for America's top public health agencies, with President Trump's acting HHS secretary instructing them to refrain from publicly issuing any document

until it has been reviewed and approved by a presidential appointee. This, as vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. awaits confirmation as HHS secretary. The pause set to expire February 1st, with HHS saying they'll consider exceptions for mission-critical announcements on a case-by-case basis. But does America's bird flu crisis qualify, with new cases reported this month in at least 20 states, including at this New York duck farm, where nearly 100,000 birds are set to be euthanized. The virus infecting 67 people in the last year, killing one. Public health experts warn federal agencies can't go silent. You fear even a brief or temporary pause could have consequences amid this outbreak. Yes, I do, because there are cases that are accumulating now. There was just guidance

updates a couple of days before the Biden administration left office. Bird flu jumping to other species, including dairy cows. The outgoing Biden administration mandating testing of America's milk supply. There's absolutely no eggs whatsoever. This as egg shortages mount and prices soar up 65 percent in the last year. Indiana egg farmer Sam Krause has spent millions installing shower and truck washing stations. We want as farmers just to focus on taking good care of our flocks and then when we're living with this threat. Chicago area wildlife officials warning the public to avoid sick or dead birds after euthanizing dozens in

recent months. This disease has almost 100% mortality rate in the animals that we are seeing. And so really our options are euthanize what we can because human health is going to be the utmost priority. Maggie Vespa, NBC News. Big changes announced today at Target, the retailer, the latest company to end its diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. NBC Business and Data correspondent Brian Chung joins me. Brian, what have you learned about this move? Yeah, Lester. Well, the company announcing today that it would be scaling back and ending its three year DEI policy, which would include making changes to a supplier diversity program

that sought to increase the amount of products in stores from black businesses. Now, in a memo to employees that was seen by NBC News, the company cited the evolving external landscape as the reason. But this is a major turn for a company headquartered in Minneapolis, the same city where George Floyd was murdered in 2020, sparking a wave of corporate initiatives on DEI. But now, Target joins the likes of Lowe's, Walmart, and McDonald's in scaling back its policies. But companies still defending theirs, Microsoft, Apple and Costco,

where just yesterday more than 98 percent of shareholders rejected a proposal to pare back their DEI policies. A resounding vote there, Lester. All right, Brian, thanks very much. Turning overseas now where the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is holding five days after it went into effect. Under the deal, more hostages are set to be released tomorrow. Raf Sanchez joins me now from Israel. Raf, we learned today which hostages will be freed. Lester, Hamas says it'll release four female soldiers the first time it's freed Israeli military personnel.

And a warning, some of this footage is disturbing. They're known as the Watchtower Girls, unarmed women soldiers taken from an observation post. 18-year-old Liri Albag trying to speak to the Hamas gunmen. That's what you mean? What? While Nama Levy paraded through Gaza, sweatpants appearing stained with blood. Now Hamas says they're going home, along with two comrades, in exchange for 200 Palestinian prisoners, as the ceasefire continues to hold nearly one week in. Palestinian families have spent the days since the truce making painful pilgrimages to the ruins of their homes.

Ahmed Al-Kudra set off on that journey a little after 9 a.m. Sunday. But unbeknownst to him, the ceasefire had been delayed. Hamas had not handed over the names of the hostages it planned to free. And so Israel's airstrikes continued, one of them destroying this police vehicle. The IDF says it was hitting terror targets, but the blast also killed Ahmed, along with his 16-year-old son Adli and his six-year-old daughter, Sama.

She died around 9.30 a.m., one hour, 45 minutes before the guns finally went silent. One of, if not the very last, child killed before the ceasefire. She was like a rose, her mother says, a little girl who imagined her own wedding day and pleaded with her mom for a banana, a rare luxury in wartime Gaza. Now mourning for a small girl who asked for so little and came so close to surviving this pitiless war. Raf Sanchez, NBC News, Jerusalem.

We will take a break here. And in 60 seconds, our interview with a close cousin of the Menendez brothers, which she told us about the potential for their resentencing as the family waits for the new DA's decision. We're back with developments in the Menendez brothers' murder case, their cousin on why she believes they deserve to get out of prison. She spoke with our Stephanie Gosk. When two brothers shot their parents in a Beverly Hills home in 1989, family tragedy became public fascination. And it still is. To have the public spectacle for a decade after decade has been very difficult.

Anna Maria Baralt is the Menendez brothers' first cousin. We played in a lot of pools. We ran around. I mean, they were full of life. Sentenced to life without parole, Baralt never thought her cousins would be released. Until now. We're in constant contact. Are they hopeful? I think that they are cautiously hopeful. A resentencing hearing set for next week has been pushed to March, but it's still happening. Set in motion by L.A.'s previous district attorney, George Gascogne, after recent TV shows drew new attention

to Jose Menendez's alleged abuse of his sons. If you look at Lyle and Eric as people, not just a blanket life without parole sentence, I think that you are forced to confront their incredible rehabilitation. But George Gascon has been replaced with a new DA who says he's not interested in watching the shows. We will look at each case separately, which is the way they actually should be handled. We'll look at each victim separately. The decision to pursue resentencing now rests in his hands. Didn't it seem like the new DA took a step back from where Gascon was? It did feel like in his interviews he was saying that. However, I'm going to take him at his word when

he says that he's doing the hard work. Hoping, she says, that he looks not only at what her cousins did, but who they have become. Stephanie Gosk, NBC News. And still ahead as we continue here tonight, he helped transform a neighborhood. Now his property taxes are up more than 600 percent and his business at risk. The cost of living is next. Six years ago, we brought you the story of Kansas City's Troost Avenue, historically a racial and economic dividing line undergoing a transformation. Since then, there has been

progress on Troost, but as Antonia Hilton reports, for some that has led to new problems. Last September, each day before he opened up his juice shop, Ruby Jeans, Chris Goode took the same walk along Kansas City's Troost Avenue that he would make as a child. And this is the same corner, the same bus stop that you used to go to as a kid. This is our bus stop. The difference now is that he owns part of the block. This was his dream, to bring his community access to vibrant, nutritious food. Thank you all so much for the patience.

Good launched his business in 2015 to honor his grandmother, Ruby Jean, who passed away from diabetes. She loved us endlessly. And the way that she communicated that love the most was through her food. Good was also answering a call in his community, helping to revitalize a poor neighborhood. He opened a store in his childhood neighborhood in 2017. Five years later, he bought the building right on Troost Avenue.

You look west of the line, it's about 95% white. You look east of the line, it's about 95% black. In 2018, Lester reported on the role Troost Avenue played as Kansas City's historic racial dividing line. A transformation underway then continues today. New high-end condo buildings, trendy restaurants and businesses like Ruby Jean's, filling longtime vacant real estate. I would love something.

But progress comes with a price. What's it been like for you trying to hold on and grow this business? It's been tough. In 2023, Good received a letter from the county following a new property value assessment. His taxes were going up by 657 percent. At first, he thought it was an error, but homeowner taxes were going up, too. To Good, his level of increase just seemed unfair. There's somebody stroking a piece of paper with a pen, apathetically, unconsciously, has no connection to the service that we provide to this city, the gravity that we are for this city. But in a statement to NBC News, Jackson County said the increase was fair and reasonable,

that state law requires the county to reassess properties every two years. And in the case of Chris Good, rising demand and investment in the surrounding area have driven higher property values, which have impacted assessments across the region. The county adding that aligning property values with the market helps address historical systemic inequities. Good is now staring down a $60,000 tax bill he says he can't afford, and one for now he says he won't pay. I refuse. You're not going to run us out of here. Not willing to abandon the dream that a young boy from the east side could own a piece of this place too. Antonia Hilton, NBC News, Kansas City, Missouri. And coming up, the crowds can barely contain themselves as these new residents of Washington make their public debut. The good news

is next. Finally tonight, Washington and much of the country have been fixated on two newcomers to D.C. who have stolen the attention but have zero interest in politics. Tom Costello with the good news tonight. While new occupants have moved into the nation's capital, it's the other new residents just up the street who have complete bipartisan support. They're snow surfing, somersaults and tree climbing, stealing hearts at the Smithsonian National Zoo. On loan from China, three-year-olds Bao Li and Ching Bao today made their official public debut. We're the only place on the planet where people can see giant pandas for free. Lisa Barhan and five-year-old Jaden came from Cleveland waiting in 18-degree cold at 5.30 a.m. They've always been special. I've loved them since I was a kid. There is

something special about watching a giant panda chomp down on bamboo on a cold day in January. It's just kind of calming. I think pandemonium is going to break out right here at the zoo. Pandas first came to Washington in 1972, part of a diplomatic and global conservation program that was put on pause in 2023 as U.S.-Chinese relations soured. Now, Bao Li and Ching Bao are finding their bearings in their new home. Our shared love for pandas has deepened my conviction that China and the United States have much more in common than what divides us. Do you want to play? There you go. They'll be here for 10 years. Two more pandas are at the San Diego Zoo as pandaplomacy returns. Tom Costello, NBC News, at the National Zoo.

And that is nightly news for this Friday. Thank you for watching. I'm Lester Holt. Please take care of yourself and each other. Good night.