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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Sen. Van Hollen: Abrego Garcia's Case Is About Constitutional Rights For All U.S. Residents; Trump: If Russia Or Ukraine Make It "Very Difficult" We'll Walk; Police: Suspect To Remain In Hospital For "Significant" Period; DHS Revoking Temporary Protected Status For Some Afghans In U.S.; Some Weight Loss Medication Users Experience "Plateau". Aired 5-6p ET

Aired April 18, 2025 - 17:00   ET

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

CHUCK TODD, HOST, THE CHUCK TODDCAST: And I don't -- I know this is 25 years old now.

[17:00:00]

KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: I remember.

TODD: But it is a, in -- in that there -- there's one of these -- this is one of those, it's tough to find out what the -- there's no right answer, there's simply sort of, it depends on how you're interpreting the moment here that we're in and what you view a migrant in this country versus whether they're a legal, all - all of those things, a lot of it has to do with your own view of America.

HUNT: And that says so much about where we are as Americans, period, at the end. Thank you all very much for being here with us to do this today. Thanks to all of you for being with us as well. Don't go anywhere. The Lead with Jake Tapper starts right now.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: The Democratic senator who met with Kilmar Abrego Garcia in El Salvador just returned. The Lead starts right now.

We are learning new details about the condition of the undocumented migrant deported in error to El Salvador from the Democratic senator from Maryland who sat down with him face-to-face as President Trump is dropping new allegations about Garcia's alleged criminal record.

And reports revealing a clash between two of Trump's money men, billionaire Elon Musk and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. The reported dispute has caused a leadership whiplash at the IRS.

And know anyone on one of those GLP-1 drugs, but the pounds stopped falling off? CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta has a new report on the science behind the weight loss plateau some users are experiencing.

Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper. Today President Trump is leveling additional accusations against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, that's the undocumented migrant who was living in Maryland and who was deported to a prison in El Salvador despite a U.S. judge's order barring him from being deported to El Salvador.

Trump citing a Homeland Security Investigations report says Garcia was suspected of having engaged in human trafficking.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: That prisoner's record is unbelievably bad. In 2022 Garcia was stopped by the Tennessee Highway Patrol and was found to be transporting seven people from Texas to Maryland and he had no driver's license.

He was driving violently. This is the man that the Democrats are wanting us to fly back from El Salvador to be a happily ensconced member of the USA family.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: While this DHS report noted that this was a suspected trafficking incident, the report did not elevate to any specific trafficking violations or charges against Garcia. Garcia's wife also says that -- that he drove a lot given the fact that he works in construction. So the big question, where do things stand now? Garcia remains in Salvador in custody despite the U.S. Supreme Court ordering the Trump administration to facilitate his return. The White House again insisted today Garcia is not coming back to the U.S. One thing we do know is that Garcia is accounted for at least for now.

Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland was able to meet with Garcia in El Salvador last night and moments ago after touching down at Dulles Airport in Virginia, Senator Van Hollen spoke about that visit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D-MD): The President, President Trump and the Trump administration wants to say that those who are fighting to stand up for our Constitution don't want to fight gang violence. That is an outright lie. That is a big, big lie.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Senator Van Hollen also addressed the drinking glasses on the table as he met with Garcia, an apparent propaganda effort by the Salvadoran government to make it look as though the two were drinking margaritas.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VAN HOLLEN: As we were talking, one of the government people came over and deposited two other glasses on the table with ice and I don't know if it was salt or sugar around the top, but they look like margaritas. Let me just be very clear, neither of us touched the drinks that were in front of us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Margaritas. CNN's David Culver has more on the senator's press conference and he's learning more about how Van Hollen was able to secure that meeting with Garcia after initially being denied a visit. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID CULVER, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A photo op that is sparking political spin from all sides. Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen sitting next to Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland resident whose deportation has become a flashpoint in President Trump's mass deportation efforts and his clashes with the courts.

VAN HOLLEN: This case is not just about one man. It's about protecting the constitutional rights of everybody who resides in the United States of America.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, yes.

[17:05:00]

CULVER (voice-over): Van Hollen met with Abrego Garcia late Thursday in a San Salvador hotel.

VAN HOLLEN: I called Jennifer to tell her that I had met with Kilmar. And I told her what he said to me, which was first and foremost that he missed her and his family.

CULVER (voice-over): Abrego Garcia's wife described the news of her husband's condition as a prayer answered, adding that she's relieved to know her husband is alive. Deported last month despite a 2019 U.S. immigration court order prohibiting his return to El Salvador, Abrego Garcia was put on a plane and sent straight to El Salvador's notorious terrorism confinement center, CECOT. The administration first called Abrego Garcia's deportation a mistake in court, but now stand by it.

In the Oval Office Monday, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele sat next to President Donald Trump. Both leaders defending Abrego Garcia's deportation and imprisonment, with President Trump deferring to others to explain.

PAM BONDI, ATTORNEY GENERAL: That's up to El Salvador if they want to return him. That's not up to us.

NAYIB BUKELE, SALVADORAN PRESIDENT: We're not very fond of releasing terrorists into our country.

CULVER (voice-over): On Wednesday, Senator Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador, meeting with the country's vice president. And on Thursday, he tried to access CECOT without permission.

VAN HOLLEN: He spoke several times about your five-year-old son who has autism. Five-year-old son who was in the car in Maryland when Kilmar was pulled over by U.S. government agents and handcuffed. His five-year-old son was in the car at that time.

CULVER (voice-over): We visited CECOT just days before Van Hollen attempted his visit. Officials took us into Sector 4, where suspected MS-13 and 18th Street gang members are kept, some convicted, others still awaiting trial. But we were not allowed in other sectors, where the newest deportees, including Abrego Garcia, are believed to be held. Perhaps most surprising is that the first mention of Van Hollen's meeting with Abrego Garcia came from President Bukele. He posted several photos with a seemingly sarcastic caption.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, miraculously risen from the death camps and torture, now sipping margaritas with Senator Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador. He then added that Abrego Garcia gets the honor of staying in El Salvador's custody, and later posting, as though taunting political opponents for their next move, I love chess. The photos Bukele selected, intentional, according to a source close with El Salvadoran president, one of them clearly showing Abrego Garcia's arm tattoos, the source saying that that is intended to hint at gang affiliations, which have been publicly alleged, but not legally proven.

Conservative allies say the meeting is proof that Democrats are siding with a suspected MS-13 gang member. But neither the U.S. nor El Salvador has filed formal charges against Abrego Garcia, and his attorneys maintain he has no gang ties. And yet he remains in Salvadoran custody.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CULVER (on camera): Jake, there are two things that stand out to me from that press conference from Senator Van Hollen that we just heard a little bit from. And one is that, according to Van Hollen, the U.S. is now paying not $6 million to El Salvador, but $15 million to hold those deportees. The second thing, Jake, is Senator Van Hollen said that Abrego Garcia is no longer in CECOT as of nine days ago, that he was moved to another prison in Santa Ana.

Now, I have been to a prison in Santa Ana called La Granja, which is far more relaxed. It's more of a work type prison, if you will, almost a work camp. And what's interesting about that to me, Jake, is if they still consider Abrego Garcia to be a terrorist, as President Bukele has said, a gang member, then they are only to be in CECOT.

So it is very interesting that they would continue to label him as such if they moved him to a lesser prison where they believe folks who can basically work off their sentence and be re-entered into society can finish out their time.

TAPPER: All right, David Culver, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Let's talk about this now with CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig. Elie, let's talk about this 2022 traffic stop report on Abrego Garcia, which is in this DHS report from 2022. You have prosecuted major human trafficking cases. What would make officials suspect human trafficking but not take any law enforcement action, not file charges?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, Jake, I just read the DHS press release, which is up on their website. This is not the smoking gun that they're trying to sell it as. I'm not seeing nearly enough information evidence here to conclude that this individual was a human trafficker in the sense that that term is ordinarily used.

[17:09:56] And by the way, the timing is important here because by 2015, 2020, virtually every police officer had been trained up on human trafficking, what to do in this type of scenario. So what they should have done, it appears the police did do some of this, figure out who's in the car. Are there any minors? What are the relationships between the people? Are their stories consistent or inconsistent? Where are they going to? Where are they coming from?

The most important point here is the police let them go. So either the police concluded there was not enough indicators of human trafficking, or they didn't do anything do their job properly. But either way, Jake, it is a huge leap to go from the facts we have to this man as a human trafficker.

TAPPER: When it comes to deportation, how much does it matter legally whether someone is a human trafficker or a gang member?

HONIG: Yes, so we need to keep this in proper legal perspective. On the one hand, a person who is here illegally can be deported even if they've done nothing wrong. If it's shown that they're here illegally, and they don't qualify for some exception, they can be deported whether they're a gang member or not whether they're human trafficker or not.

On the other hand, if the government is trying to impose some punishment, deportation or imprisonment, based on a claim that somebody is a criminal or has this affiliation, there's due process involved here, you have to prove it in an immigration court in a criminal court, whatever the case may be, you don't get to just insist it into a microphone and make it such. That's the whole point of due process here.

TAPPER: And also, Elie, I read in the National Review, an article by Andy McCarthy that the judge that ruled Abrego Garcia cannot be sent to El Salvador, which is not to say that he can't be deported, just that he can't be deported to El Salvador. That happened during the first Trump administration. And the Trump Justice Department did not contest it. Is that legally relevant?

HONIG: Yes, that's exactly right. It's 2019. And so that has been the position of the administration, dating back to the first Trump administration. Now, you can go into court always immigration court or criminal court and say, some circumstances changed. And we want to change the determination here. We want your honor to reopen the case reconsider. But none of that was done.

Let's remember, he was deported first, the administration admitted it was in error. And now they're trying to backtrack and come up with this after the fact justification based on some police report from Tennessee that doesn't really tell us much of anything at all.

ROKER: Elie Honig, thanks so much.

Meanwhile, in our money lead, "The New York Times" broke the story that there is a fresh power struggle between the Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent and first buddy Elon Musk. Let's go to CNN anchor and chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins. Now, Kaitlan, what's this all about?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR & CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jake, it was only about 72 hours ago that we learned that Gary Shapley was going to be the new acting commissioner of the IRS. And now on this Friday, we have learned that because of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent going to President Trump over this matter, that he is now being removed from that position. And instead, Secretary Bessent deputy is going to take over as the acting IRS commissioner.

And what a lot of this had to do with in the behind the scenes here that we've confirmed these details that were reported by "The New York Times," is that essentially that Gary Shapley had been installed in this position, it was announced in an e-mail that went out to -- to the entire department earlier this week. This all happened, though, while Secretary Bessent was out of the country. And he voiced his frustration with this, given Gary Shapley is someone who has an IRS whistleblower made the argument that he should be in that position, that he was installed into that role.

He had the backing of Elon Musk here and congressional Republicans, I should note as well, who have worked with him over the years as he's been this whistleblower, when it comes to -- to the IRS previously. And so that's the real question here, Jake, in terms of what this looks like in this power struggle that we are seeing play out between Secretary Bessent and Elon Musk, not one that is an unfamiliar territory for several of the cabinet members, who have at times felt that that Elon Musk and his DOGE team have had too much influence over the staffing at their respective departments.

They're the Senate confirmed heads. They believe they should be the ones making these decisions. And I will note that in his statement confirming that his deputy is going to be taking over as the acting IRS Commissioner instead of this whistleblower, Jake, that Treasury Secretary Bessent said that that Gary Shapley will be kept around and that he will be a trusted senior advisor as they work to improve trust at the IRS.

TAPPER: All right, Kaitlan Collins, thanks so much. Look out for Kaitlan in just a few hours on her show, The Source with Kaitlin Collins. That's tonight at 9:00 Eastern, only here on CNN.

[17:14:19]

Coming up on The Lead, the comments by President Trump and Secretary of State Rubio that could up end the U.S. role in negotiating the potential ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If for some reason one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we're just going to say you're foolish. You're fools. You're horrible people. And we're going to just take a pass. But hopefully we won't have to do that. And Marco -- and Marco is right in saying that we're getting -- we want to see it end.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: President Trump today talking about Secretary of State Marco Rubio after Rubio told reporters earlier in Paris this morning if it's not possible to come to a Russian-Ukraine ceasefire, then the United States is just going to quote move on. We're going to cover this story from Washington and Moscow.

CNN's Kylie Atwood and Matthew Chance are with us now. And Kylie, Secretary Rubio said the U.S. could walk away in quote days. Trump did not put a specific timeline on it. There's clear frustration among the Americans when it comes to negotiating this.

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right. And that's why the next few days here, Jake, are the ones to watch to see if this pressure that the Secretary of State has now put on both parties is actually going to turn into forward momentum that has really been stunted over the last few weeks with regard to efforts to bring an end to the Ukraine war.

The Secretary of State made these remarks after meeting with Europeans and laying out for them a construct of a peace plan that the United States has been putting together sort of a basic framework as we understand it. He also laid that out for the Ukrainians were in the meeting in a phone call with the Russian foreign minister. He did the same thing.

[17:20:04]

So now all parties know what the Trump administration wants to be as setting the stage for these conversations, they're waiting to see if they actually come to the table. The thing we don't know, Jake, however, is what the Trump administration is prepared to do if that doesn't happen over the course of the next few days.

Are they going to give Ukraine more support on the battlefield? Are they going to go ahead and normalize relations with Russia? That remains an open question, and it's a critical one because both of these parties need to feel that this is the time for them to come forward, particularly if they feel like they could lose something over the course of these negotiations.

TAPPER: And Matthew, there are pros and cons to this news when it comes to the Kremlin. Lay -- lay them out for us.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, if -- if -- if the Trump administration walks away from peacemaking, then definitely it's a double-edged sword for the Kremlin. You know, on the one hand, of course, it's being welcomed in the Russian media. If only the Americans would stop their arms, you know, kind of grants to -- to Ukraine and get out of the way and let us do what we need to do. It would be a sort of walk in the park for the -- for the Russian military.

That seems to be the prevailing sentiment. But of course, it's unlikely to lead to a kind of military collapse immediately inside Ukraine. There are still going to be soldiers on both sides in Ukraine, of course, but also in Russia that are going to be killed and injured.

They're still going to be fed into that that frontline meat grinder, and that's going to increase social pressures already prevalent here in Russia. There's also economic pressures as well. Every day the war goes on, the Russian economy becomes more fragile. It becomes more brittle. Interest rates are incredibly high. They're about 4 percent in the United States. They're over 20 percent here, the central bank rate. So just an idea of the financial strains, the economic strains the country is under.

And so even though a U.S. walk away may be welcomed, it may be sort of looked on as a missed opportunity by Putin to basically seize a victory in Ukraine, basically on very favorable terms, a resolution of the conflict on very favorable terms. And so, yes, there are pros and cons. You're right.

TAPPER: Kylie, you have some new reporting on Steve Witkoff. He's Trump's Middle East envoy. He's become Trump's point man, seemingly on all major foreign policy challenges. He's met with Putin three times in Moscow. How are people in the Trump administration feeling about Witkoff being kind of at the helm?

ATWOOD: Well, listen, when you talk to White House officials, people close to Witkoff, even foreign diplomats and U.S. diplomats, they all say that it's very clear that Witkoff has the absolute faith and trust of the president. And so they like working with him because they know what he says translates to what the president is thinking.

He does operate very differently than classic diplomats, than trained diplomats have. He doesn't have big briefing books when he goes out to these meetings with folks like President Putin, with the Iranian foreign minister. He doesn't have a team of diplomats at the table with him.

He goes at it alone. I'm told he prepares with a lot of impromptu meetings. He also relies increasingly so on his intelligence briefings. But it's that relationship with the President that really drives his conversations. Now, you talk to people who have been at the State Department for a while, they're concerned about how prepared he is going into some of these conversations, that he could be outmaneuvered by President Putin or by the Iranians.

But people close to Witkoff say that he is used to building up trust with foreign interlocutors. He does it in business. He thinks he can do it here. And he thinks it will translate to actual foreign policy wins. We'll have to see if that is what happens.

TAPPER: All right, Kylie Atwood and Matthew Chance, thanks so much to both of you. CNN global affairs analyst Brett McGurk joins us now. Most recently, he served as lead hostage negotiator under President Biden. He has advised both Republican and Democratic presidents. Brett, you're a veteran diplomat. What's your take on the Trump administration's approach to the ceasefire? BRETT MCGURK, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: I see the frustration from the Secretary of State, which is not surprising. Diplomacy is extremely hard. It's frustrating. It's Good Friday, as George Mitchell said about the Good Friday agreement. It's about 700 days of failure, one day of success. So it's frustrating, OK.

Where this negotiation is going, though, just open a question. So five weeks ago, the Secretary of State was in Saudi Arabia, and they came to an agreement with Ukraine on a 30-day ceasefire. If you go back to that statement that the Secretary put out, he said Russian reciprocity is now the key to peace. And it's been about five weeks, and there's been no Russian reciprocity.

TAPPER: Yes, they've been bombing the hell out of Ukraine.

MCGURK: And so the question is, as you're in a negotiation and you're at an impasse, how do you kind of build up some leverage with the party who might be recalcitrants? And right now, I don't see the leverage being built up against the Russians at all. I mean, President Trump two weeks ago said, I think rightly, his words, he said, I'm pissed off at Putin, he said. We might have to look at secondary sanctions for purchases of Russian oil.

[17:25:05]

That would be against the Chinese and the Indians. Those are the types of moves you could start to make, or at least threaten, and so far I'm not seeing that. So today could be a negotiating tactic, I think in the best case, or it could just reflect the frustration of trying to end this war. I say one more thing, Jake, you know, ending wars are very difficult.

I've also been through presidential transitions. Every new administration realizes the world is a little more complicated than we might have hoped. Nixon said, I have a secret plan to end the Vietnam War, his entire first term. He had no success in that. Eisenhower said, I'm going to go to Korea and the Korean War. It took him seven months.

He threatened to use nuclear weapons to escalate to de-escalate, and we still don't really have a true peace deal on the Korean Peninsula.

TAPPER: Right, we're still at a declared state of war with North Korea, right?

MCGURK: Yes, so this is tough. We're not even 100 days into the Trump administration, it's kind of hard to remember that. It's early. So I hope this is a negotiating tactic and not a sign that they might actually walk away from this. I think that would be a real problem.

TAPPER: Let's take a listen to another moment from President Trump earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you do decide to move on or take a pass, Mr. President, would you then continue to support Ukraine militarily?

TRUMP: Well, I'm not going to say that because I think we're going to get it done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: But probably wise that he didn't say it either way, right? You want to keep both sides guessing as to what you're going to do.

MCGURK: You don't want to show your cards. We had that train wreck of the Oval Office meeting here about six weeks ago. Everybody kind of recovered from that. You had the meeting in Saudi Arabia that I mentioned. And Ukraine signed up to a 30-day ceasefire. I think now you really got to think about how can we get the Russians to sign up to the same thing.

I think it's good there are meetings in Paris with the European allies together with the Ukrainians. There will be another meeting about a week from now in London. That's good. But look, you got to stay at it. It's frustrating. It feels like failure until you get something done. So I hope it's a negotiating tactic today.

TAPPER: This is the second round of high-stakes nuclear talks between the U.S. and Iran this weekend. President Trump recently warned that the U.S. would work with Israel to strike Iran if a deal isn't reached. Does Iran respond to that kind of negotiating tactic, or it might not even be a negotiating tactic? Israel, there's no secret that Netanyahu wants to take out Iran's nuclear program. He needs the U.S.'s help, and the U.S. is reluctant to give that help right now. So I don't know if it's a negotiating tactic or just stating the facts, but how does Iran respond to that?

MCGURK: You know, so far, Jake, I -- I give the administration pretty high marks on Iran. And here, unlike what I said about the approach to Russia, you do have real coercive diplomacy. You have increasing sanctions. You have military deployments. You have real threat of military force. I think that's needed. That got Iran to the table. You know, Iran has said they will never sit with the Trump administration after the Soleimani strike in this first administration.

So the fact that they're sitting down, I think, is good. But look, this deal is going to be extremely, extremely difficult. The Iranians put out what they said are their red lines today. They're red lines that the American side will not accept. They really said they're going to keep their enrichment program, they're going to keep their advanced centrifuges.

That is totally unacceptable. I come at this, I was on October 16th just last year in the Situation Room as 200 ballistic missiles were heading from Iran to Israel. It takes 13 minutes for that flight. And I kept thinking to myself, if one of those missiles had a nuclear warhead. And this problem has to be solved. I hope it could be solved diplomatically. But the threat of military force is very important, and you've got to keep that on the table.

TAPPER: All right, Brett McGurk, always great to have you. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

[17:28:30]

Coming up, the tragic mass shooting at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida. We've just learned the identity of the two victims killed. As those who knew the suspect share what they knew about his alleged political leanings, does that point to a possible motive? Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: In our National Lead, health officials say that six people injured in Thursday's mass shooting at Florida State University in Tallahassee are expected to survive. This as we are learning the identities of the two people who were killed that day, innocent people. Robert Morales, who was an FSU employee, according to his brother. And Tiru Chabba, who worked for Aramark, which is a food service and facilities management company.

CNN's Nick Valencia has more now on the investigation. As thousands of students now scarred by the lasting trauma of gun violence are attempting to return to some sense of normalcy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHIEF LAWRENCE REVELL, TALLAHASSEE POLICE: At this point, there does not appear to be any connection at all between the shooter and any of the victims.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Officials in Tallahassee releasing more information today about the shooting at Florida State University. We now know the shooter, a 20-year-old junior and political science major. Phoenix Ikner is the son of Jessica Ikner, a longtime Leon County sheriff's deputy. Authorities say he used a handgun that used to be her service weapon to kill two people and injure six others before police shot him.

REVELL: The suspect continues to receive treatment at one of our local hospitals. He did receive significant injuries in this event. Once he is released from that facility, he'll be taken to a local detention facility where he will face the charges up to and including first degree murder.

VALENCIA (voice-over): Another FSU student told CNN he knew Ikner, whom he encountered in an extracurricular political club.

REID SEYBOLD, FSU STUDENT: He had continually made enough people uncomfortable where, you know, certain people had stopped coming. And that's kind of when we reached the -- the breaking point with Phoenix and we had asked him to leave. It's been a couple of years now. I -- I can't give exact quotes. He, you know, talked about the -- the ravages of multiculturalism and communism and how it's ruining America.

VALENCIA (voice-over): CNN has also learned from court documents that Ikner had a tumultuous childhood with his parents spending years battling over custody issues. When he was 10 years old, his biological mother, Anne Marie Eriksen, flew him from Florida to Norway. Violating a custody agreement, a judge ruled.

[17:35:13]

She had told her son she was taking him to Disney World, according to a court document filed by his father. While he was in Norway, his father claimed in a court filing his mother didn't buy him a toothbrush. And he went 103 days without brushing his teeth.

And in 2019, the suspect's father filed a petition to change his son's name from Christian Eriksen to Phoenix Ikner. The suspect testified in support of the change and a judge approved it over the objections of his mother.

At the hospital where all six victims were transported after the shooting, doctors were feeling hopeful for the victim's outcome.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We do feel that all will make a full recovery.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VALENCIA (on camera): And there's a vigil being held outside right now, Jake, outside the school's football stadium. A place where they usually celebrate victories, but this atmosphere, one that is full of sorrow.

And we've seen people embrace each other, holding each other's hands, others with their head in their hands. You know, just trying to make sense of what happened here yesterday. And one of the people that is here was an eyewitness I spoke to yesterday, Emily Palmer.

And she said it wasn't until today that the gravity of everything that happened hit her. She said she was at the store getting flowers like so many others here. And she was inspired by that, that there were so many people.

I mean, just check this out. Look at just how many people are here. It looks like the entire student body. Emily Palmer went on to tell me that she was inspired that this community is coming together amidst this devastating tragedy. Jake?

TAPPER: All right, Nick Valencia, live at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida. Thank you so much.

And one correction, during our coverage yesterday, we misidentified one guest as a Florida State University student. He's actually a student at Tallahassee State College. He lives a block away from FSU and ran over to campus to help get a friend out of the library.

Coming up, the specific group the Trump administration wants to leave the United States. The e-mail messages urging them to go, that's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:41:24]

TAPPER: In our World Lead, as Christians around the world mark Good Friday, that includes Vice President Vance and his family who attended the service at the Vatican. Here in the United States, a number of Afghan Christians who fled their country to avoid persecution by the extremists of the Taliban are now receiving e-mails from the Department of Homeland Security. CNN obtained one of the messages -- messages and it starts, quote, It is time for you to leave the United States, a Good Friday message for Afghan Christians from the Trump administration.

This comes after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem determined late last month that Afghan -- Afghanistan no longer meets the conditions for those who seek temporary protected status. Shawn VanDiver is joining us now. He's the founder and president of AfghanEvac. And Sean, your organization has helped relocate 195,000 Afghan allies since the U.S. withdrawal in 2021. How many people do you know of right now who have gotten letters like this one?

SHAWN VANDIVER, FOUNDER, #AFGHANEVAC: Well, we know that thousands of folks who used CBP-1 to legally cross the border received these -- these messages. And in fact, many who weren't supposed to receive them, many who came here through Operation Allies Welcome, received them erroneously. We actually don't know how they're messing this up, but we know that they are, in fact, messing up the -- the sort of the -- the filter on who they're sending these e-mails to. In fact, today they filed a court response to Doe versus Noem that said as much.

TAPPER: The Department of Homeland Security decided in March that Afghans fleeing the Taliban no longer met the requirements for temporary protected status. A senior DHS official said in a statement, to be clear, if you are an alien, being in the United States is a privilege, not a right. We are acting in the best interest of the country and enforcing the law accordingly, unquote. Is it the Trump administration's assessment that conditions have improved if Afghan -- in Afghanistan? Is -- is that accurate?

VANDIVER: Well, it's certainly not accurate. But it seems like the Trump administration must believe that the conditions have changed because that's the only way that you would take away temporary protected status, which is for people who cannot go back. They're in danger. And I'm here to tell you, if you're an Afghan woman, if you're somebody who is here because we brought you here, or if you're somebody who has any sort of relationship with the United States government, things are not better for you in Afghanistan.

In fact, we know that things have only gotten worse in the three and a half years since the chaotic withdrawal. And it just seems really unconscionable to pull the rug out from folks that we made a promise to stand by.

TAPPER: So what happens to these individuals if they -- if these Afghan Christians are told by the Trump administration, as they are being told right now, you have to leave? Where do they go? Do they end up in Afghanistan? And if they end up in Afghanistan, what happens to them?

VANDIVER: Sure. So there's a lot of things that are happening right now, right? They're terminating parole. They're -- they're letting TPS expire. They're not flying people here from Afghanistan. And in every single case of an Afghan that would have to go back to Afghanistan, they're in real danger. They're in serious danger.

Now, it would be against international law for us to send them back to Afghanistan because it is a dangerous place for them. Now, if passed this prologue, which we can trust in most administrations, then it would take six months. They'd have six months to get their affairs in order. They might request asylum or some other thing.

[17:45:02]

But as we've seen, this administration is moving really fast to break things with DOGE and other mechanisms. When they realize they've messed up, they move less fast to fix those things. So the -- the number one thing that folks who are impacted by this order need to know is that they need to get in touch with an immigration attorney. And they can go to afghanevac.org/resources to look up an immigration attorney. In many cases, they can get pro bono representation.

If you're not impacted by this and you're an American who cares about this, what you can do is go to afghanevac.org/letter-to-reps. And you can write to your representative and say, hey, we even have a draft letter there. Hey, this has to stop. These folks deserve some bit of stability. We owe it to them at the very least.

TAPPER: Right. I mean, this is the point is that these were people who helped us, right? I mean, they helped the United States. And that's -- that's why they're here. That and also fleeing the persecution at the hands of these Islamist extremists who run the country and won't even let girls or women learn.

VANDIVER: That's exactly right, Jake. And look, here's what happened. We -- a lot of these folks, Kristi Noem, Donald Trump, Mike Waltz, Stephen Miller, all these folks that are currently in power, they had a lot to say about the chaotic withdrawal, just like myself and many of my colleagues at AfghanEvac about how bad it was being messed up in August of 2021, right?

We saw the images of people falling off the planes. What they should be doing now is fixing it, making it faster, smarter and better. The policy that the Biden administration worked with AfghanEvac and others to build represents the first time in our history that our wartime allies are being stood with and getting the delivery on the promises we made to them.

So it seems pretty hypocritical that President Trump would mention it at every debate, that it would come up every day at the RNC, that they would march to advocate families out onto the stage at the RNC. And now what we thought was inadvertent consequences of executive orders is now looking like a strategy to throw our allies under the bus. And it's just unconscionable. I know that veterans all over this country are really pissed off about it. And so is Congress.

TAPPER: Shawn VanDiver, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Coming up next, the science behind a weight loss struggle. Why some who use GLP-1 drugs dropped a few pounds, but then they had a plateau of sorts. Stay with us.

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[17:51:54]

TAPPER: Our Health Lead now, drug maker Eli Lilly announced this week that an experimental pill version of their popular medication is effective in weight loss. This comes as some users of those popular GLP-1 medications are finding that their weight loss has plateaued after using the drugs for months. CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta looks at why.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: What was the highest weight you ever had?

KOSTA LIGRIS, WEIGHT LOSS DRUG PATIENT: The highest weight I ever had was just slightly over 400 pounds. You have this sort of reckoning like, OK, I'm going to die.

GUPTA: So Kosta Ligris started taking a weight loss drug three years ago. How much weight did you lose?

LIGRIS: I've lost probably over 130 pounds.

GUPTA: Wow. Do you want to lose more weight?

LIGRIS: I do.

GUPTA (voice-over): But losing more weight has become increasingly difficult.

GUPTA: And, of course, the Zepbound.

LIGRIS: And the Zepbound.

GUPTA (voice-over): Even on what is now the highest dose of his GLP-1 drugs.

LIGRIS: This is the equivalent of 15 milligrams of Mounjaro. I'm not losing seven or eight pounds a month anymore.

GUPTA: People are using this word plateau when it comes to these medications. What does that term mean to you?

LIGRIS: Plateau basically means you're continuing to use the medication at the dosage that you've been using it, but the weight loss has stopped, like you have reached sort of a ceiling or a cap.

DR. ANGELA FITCH, CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER, KNOWNWELL: All right, you know the drill.

GUPTA (voice-over): Dr. Angela Fitch prescribes Kosta's medications.

FITCH: We don't have something that gives you greater than a 20 to 30 percent weight loss today on average. That 20 percent weight loss is a real plateau barrier that we have trouble kind of breaking through without more intensive intervention like surgery. As you lose weight, your body makes biochemicals that try to force your weight to go back up.

LIGRIS: But as you'll see, it's -- it's a heavy protein diet.

GUPTA (voice-over): If Kosta wants to lose more weight at this point, that's going to have to mostly come from good nutrition and lifestyle changes.

LIGRIS: I've moved away from just doing a lot of cardio to moving to strength training and it's completely changed my life.

GUPTA: If you're doing everything right though, getting plenty of sleep, eating right like Kosta's doing, working out, you may still plateau on these medications.

FITCH: You will plateau. It is inevitable, yes.

GUPTA: You will plateau. So is a plateau an end goal to achieve or an obstacle to overcome?

FITCH: That is an excellent question and I think, you know, for now it is somewhat of both. We have to be happy with it being an end goal to achieve because that's the limit of our treatment today. But I think as an individual person, we still continue to make changes. You've lost 2.7 pounds of fat since last time. Even Kosta is still losing fat around his midsection, which is better for his health.

The hope is the future is different, that we have other treatments we can offer that could potentially break through those plateaus.

GUPTA (voice-over): But until then, Kosta will be in uncharted territory.

LIGRIS: I think that sometimes when we think about weight loss, a plateau sounds like a bad thing. Like you get to that number and you're stuck there. By the way, let's be clear. If I stay at this weight and I can never lose another pound, I'm probably, you know, 100 times healthier than I was when I was 130 pounds heavier and probably have added years to my life.

[17:55:02]

GUPTA: Everything you measure says you're healthy. Why do you want to lose more weight?

LIGRIS: I think that as I get older, it might be a challenge to continue to lose weight. You know, just looking historically at the data, the lower percentage body fat, the better. I certainly don't think I could lose 130 pounds, another 130 pounds.

GUPTA: Can't wither away to nothing.

LIGRIS: Can't wither away to nothing.

GUPTA (voice-over): Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Boston.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: And our thanks to Sanjay Gupta for that report.

Coming up next, how do Americans feel about President Trump's deportation efforts? Do they think it's too aggressive? Not aggressive enough? Is he following through with campaign promises? What new polling reveals, next.

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[18:00:02]

TAPPER: Welcome to The Lead. I am Jake Tapper.