Democrats, White House strike spending deal that would avert government shutdown

Elementary School students participate in Valentines for Vets program

State troopers reassigned after misconduct allegations in Hartford

Access Health CT holds enrollment fair in Stratford ahead of Saturday deadline

Connecticut's homeless population seeks shelter to escape the bitter cold 

Lamont, Bysiewicz call for Noem to resign after Minnesota shootings

connecticut

News 12 Staff

CTPP21B_2026-02-01-09-57-08

I'm Mark Sudall. Welcome back to Power and Politics. Congressman Jim Himes joins us this week. Thanks so much for coming on. Great to be with you. Well, uh, first of all, let's start with the ICE shootings, these recent shootings around the country. What's what's your reaction been to this? Well, I think I had the same reaction that I think almost every American, interestingly enough, including President Trump, had, which is this is not OK. It's not just not OK. I mean, it's appalling. And to some extent it was inevitable, right? You get guys kitted up like they're going into Fallujah to extract an al Qaeda terrorist and you lead them with people who encourage violence, who encourage antagonism, who march around in, you know, fascist style clothing. This stuff is going to happen eventually and as a moral matter it's horrendous, you know, you don't. Often see the President, President Trump, do a 180, but he took a look at American public sentiment over the killing of a nurse and of a woman, and he just said we're going to change this, which is kind of a watershed moment for Donald Trump, right? And this is interesting too, because now the House just passed a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security through the end of the fiscal year. I know a lot of Democrats were against this and voted against it. Well, remember 6 months ago in what was known as the one big beautiful bill. I don't call it that, but what was in that bill was massive amounts of money for DHS and for ICE and for the Border Patrol in particular, the units that are doing this stuff on the streets of Minneapolis. So yeah, that budget would have sailed through no problem. We'd be, we wouldn't be talking about it today and then you had that killing. And because the American people and because most Democrats said it is not OK to give these people another dime until there is accountability and oversight and training, the same stuff that the police officers on our streets of Norwalk and Stanford and Bridgeport, the same training, the same de-escalatory techniques, they're not getting another dime. So you know, hopefully the Senate right now is negotiating a deal so that there's not a shutdown. But you know, as long as ICE and CBP are behaving the way they're behaving, they're not getting. Another dime they're going to have some accountability, some training, some oversight over their activities. So what can be done about some of these situations? Can the states do anything at all? Well, you know, you get into a real legal tangle there and so the answer is yes, the states can do some things. They can demand to be part of a part of investigations as they always have been in the past. They can do what Minnesota has done, which is demand that all evidence be preserved around these two. In Minnesota, but you know, again, this is not that hard a problem to solve, right? Police officers locally go through training and de-escalation. They don't wear masks. They don't, they wear insignia. They are taught to try to reduce the level of violence. You have police forces, federal police forces unaccountable who are looking to instigate violence, to escalate, and that can be changed pretty quickly with legal. Leadership and better training for the people who are who are doing this stuff and here we are the first of the year. Access Health CT special open enrollment period is going on. What do people need to know about that? Yeah, so obviously there's still negotiation happening at the federal level to try to extend the subsidies for people who are on the Affordable Care Act. I mean, you know, the story we've talked about it, people seeing their health insurance premiums double and triple hopefully a deal is struck there, but in the meantime. Time the regular enrollment period is up on January 30th. Connecticut, in the state of Connecticut, they've got a special enrollment period starting the next day on February 1st for people to actually get some state help while the federal government sort of does its thing to get some state help. So I'm not an expert in the details, but people who for whom this is relevant need to go to Access Health CT to see if they can get some help from that program. Now this is a great event that you've done. Many years now, the annual Valentine's for Vets event in Norwalk. Uh, Tell us about that and, and, and what it means to you. Yeah, I've done this for a long time, and what we do is we go into elementary schools in the congressional district and we have, you know, 3rd and 4th graders actually write Valentine's. Here we are approaching Valentine's Day for our veterans, and I'll tell you, of all the things I do, it is just such a win-win because the veterans, of course, are profoundly moved by having young people. Reach out and say, hey, tell me about what it is to be a veteran, and thank you. You know, a lot of adults say thank you for your service, but for the little kids and the little kids who maybe are focused on lots of other things, you know, they get, they get to learn oftentimes to hear from veterans about what it was like, and it's just, it's wonderful and hilarious, you know, to hear these 9 and 10 year olds talk to veterans about what it was like to serve in the Vietnam War in Afghanistan and Iraq. It's just a really wonderful moment. And you were in Bridgeport this week too for a program that is engaging uh former folks who have been incarcerated. Yeah, yeah, Bridgeport has some really innovative programs. Um, I visited two of them actually, one group called Emerge, which is taking people who have experienced imprisonment themselves, uh, who are now mentoring and helping and providing job training to people coming out of prison. You know, it's a really tough, uh, uh, challenge, right, because when your average person here. come out of prison, they feel a little fear. There's a little stigma there. But if we can get somebody coming out of prison and give them a trade, you know, give them support, it dramatically reduces the probability that you're going to wind up in prison again. By the way, costing us somewhere between $700,000 and $100,000 a year to keep them in prison. If you can catch them at the right moment, get them a job. Uh, you know, it's just a huge win-win. There's another group that I was able to support federally, uh, called the Bridge on Main. It's just an, it's an old, um, uh, Bridgeport, uh, it was actually a drugstore a million years ago, uh, where they are putting together all these programs, soft skills, mentorship, job training to help folks that are coming out of prison become productive members of society. Now last time we spoke we talked about Venezuela. Uh, where are we now and where is this going? Well, you know, kind of where we were right Maduro is no longer running Venezuela but the old regime, the old corrupt brutal communist regime is still in place. What we've done is we put kind of a vice around them so that the oil apparently, and by the way when I say apparently maybe this is something that Congress should be involved in, apparently the United States is taking the oil, selling it, and then controlling the money wouldn't it be good if Congress knew something about this, you know, there's some questions, right? Like who else is getting the money. And you know what are the terms and so you know, again, not much has changed other than the Cubans aren't going to get a lot of Venezuelan oil and we're controlling the flow of dollars into Venezuela. I think the question is where are we six months from now? You know, the Venezuelans aren't going to be happy with this arrangement for long. What does that mean? What are the implications? Meanwhile, the world's attention has turned to Greenland. It's turned to Iran. You know this president who is America's first and not going to get into stupid wars, man, it doesn't feel like America first to me. Jim, thank you so much for the time. Thank you, Mark. Well, tax filing season has officially started, but there are some big changes to be mindful of this year.

https://vod.prod.alticeustech.com/transcode/2d2ab376-7355-433e-9f6c-0b070a3f7ade/2d2ab376-7355-433e-9f6c-0b070a3f7ade.transcribe

CTPP21C_2026-02-01-09-57-44

Fairfield parents are sharing their reaction to the cancellation of US Education Secretary Linda McMahon's visit to an elementary school in town. It was supposed to take place Friday at McKinley Elementary as part of the History Rocks tour, the Department of Education's way of celebrating the nation's 250th birthday. But after major backlash from the school community, Fairfield Superintendent Mike Testai canceled McMahon's visit. An alarming number of parents, Testani says, threatened to keep their kids out of school if the Education Secretary would be there. Still, there were some parents who didn't agree with the cancellation. I mean, I understand not liking her, but I do feel like it took some a learning experience away from our children. And that's kind of sad. Well, I think that the issue is, is this is one of the only, this is the only Title One school in Fairfield, and all the students here, a lot of the students here need the special education services that the secretary of Education tried to, um, with this administration tried to stop and so with my children receiving those services and in desperate need of those services, um, hearing that she was coming here and was being celebrated was unfortunate. Mann plans to visit schools in all 50 states during her returning education to the state's tour. Well, if you receive your W-2s in the mail, then you know tax season is here and you can now officially start filing. But there are some big changes to be mindful of this year. Anyone over the age of 65 can get an additional deduction of $6000. There's a new deduction of no tax on tips. Experts say you shouldn't stress about tax season and be sure to create a plan. Right now is a really important time because documents are coming in. They'll continue to come in over the next few days and weeks. They may come in the mail, they may come in your electronic email, so be watchful of that. But get a plan, become organized, find a pro, and go get that money. There are also free tax assistance programs across the state that you can, uh, give you some help with. To find assistance near you, head to our website at newstwelve.com. While many Americans could see higher refunds this year, the Treasury Department estimates they'll average $1000 more per household. That's because many filers didn't adjust their withholdings when recent income tax breaks began. A new law boosts the individual's standard deduction by $750 and twice that for married couples. It also expands state and local tax deductions and gives a new break to some seniors. Let's all hope for a big refund, huh? That's all our time. I'm Mark Sudall. Thanks for watching.

https://vod.prod.alticeustech.com/transcode/58d13e38-e581-4c55-afa3-07c54f8d677d/58d13e38-e581-4c55-afa3-07c54f8d677d.transcribe

Betsy McCaughey and Rep. Jim Himes join the show this week. 

Local

Crime

Weather

beWell

The East End

Crime Files

Local

Crime

Weather

beWell

The East End

Crime Files

Main

News

Sections

Choose Your Region

Be the first to know

Main

News

Sections

Change

Be the first to know

More Stories

More from News 12

Power & Politics: Meet the candidates for Fairfield first selectperson

Power & Politics: Connecticut party leaders discuss what's next in 2026

Power & Politics: Republican Sen. Fazio on Venezuela, fatal ICE shooting in Minnesota

Venezuelan Americans rejoice while Sen. Blumenthal warns of ‘another endless war’

Power & Politics: 2025 in review – Trump’s return, affordability in CT and the race for governor

Power & Politics: Gov. Lamont on Trump’s address, recent mass shootings and Sandy Hook anniversary

Privacy Policy

Terms of Service

Ad Choices

Privacy Manager