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Increased Migrant Crossings Strain U.S. Border Cities; Mexico To Deport Migrants From Its Border Cities; U.S. Ambassador: "5 Eyes" Led Canada To Accuse India; Former Trump WH Aide Recalls Tough Decision To Testify; Long-Awaited Asteroid Sample Lands In The U.S. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired September 25, 2023 - 13:30   ET

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

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[13:31:41]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: Mexico has now made an agreement with the U.S. to deport migrants from its border cities back to their home countries. This is part of a new effort to combat a recent surge in border crossings.

U.S. officials still expect migrant crossings to remain high, at least in the near term.

The mayor of El Paso, Texas, warns that the city is reaching a breaking point with more than 2,000 migrants coming in each day as opened overflow shelters deal with that influx.

CNN's Rosa Flores joins from us Houston.

Rosa, I want to get to the details of this agreement but, first, what is driving this latest wave of migrants?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, Jim, I talked to contacts and sources from both sides of the border, from the tip of Texas all wait to California.

And these are individuals who work with migrants, who talk to migrants every day. And what they say that is driving this particular surge is misinformation.

A lot of it flowing from migrants themselves who have already crossed into the United States, have been sending videos or having conversations with migrants on the border.

And the migrants are saying I've been, quote, :allowed into the United States. I have been released into the country."

And the misinformation there, Jim is the nuance. When individuals say they've been, quote, "allowed" into the country, that's incorrect. A lot of these migrants have entered in between ports of entry.

And what U.S. Border Patrol has to do by law as an enforcement agency, they have to apply the law. They have to process these migrants. And some of them are allowed to enter -- allowed to stay in the country, pending immigration proceedings.

Now if you ask U.S. Customs and Border Protection, they say lot of this information is being disseminated by cartels and criminal organizations on the border.

And I'll add one other thing from one of the community leaders in south Texas, who says there's an increase in kidnappings in Mexico as well, across the border from south Texas in certain places.

And a lot of migrants have to make the decision, do they stay in a violent, dangerous location in Mexico or do they take their chances and cross illegally into the United States.

SCIUTTO: The smugglers are here for business, right? They get paid for this.

So this agreement, how does it work exactly because it would seem to have some potential impact if Mexico is sending many of these folks further south, back to their home countries?

FLORES: You know, Jim, this could be a game-changer for the United States and the Biden administration, at least for now. Because it could mean the difference between having another border surge and not.

And we know that impacts the Biden administration politically, especially right now.

What the Mexicans are saying they're going to do is, quote, "depressurize" their northern border cities by deporting migrants back to their home countries.

And also using law enforcement and interdiction efforts to stop from using the trains and the train system in Mexico to get to the United States.

In essence, what this means is that Mexico will be, in a way, rerouting migrants out of the area, out of the northern border before they get to the United States.

Now, as to what the U.S. is doing, they're having what they describe as mirror patrols. Jim, what this means, they're coordinating with the Mexicans on the border and they're both patrolling at the same time.

[13:35:00]

So there's law enforcement agencies on both sides of the border that can apprehend these migrants.

In the United States, they're processed under U.S. law. In Mexico, the Mexicans are saying they're deported to their home countries -- Jim?

SCIUTTO: Of course, with U.S. laws, you get a hearing in the U.S.

Rosa Flores, thanks so much.

Brianna? BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Canada has upgraded its travel warning to

India, urging residents to be vigilant and cautious. And it calls for protests.

This is coming as we have new details about why Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused the Indian government of having a hand in the death of a Sikh activist in British Columbia.

U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Cohen says intel shared among the so- called Five eyes partners led Trudeau to making the accusation.

Five Eyes, referring to the intel-sharing pact between the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

India denies the allegations, calling them absurd. And its relations with Canada, though, have gone downhill since then.

CNN's Paula Newton is joining us from Ottawa on this.

Paula, what more are you learning about this new intel?

PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, what's interesting here is the fact that Ambassador Cohen would even utter such a thing, quite frankly. Some people have deemed that information from sources.

But what is so sensitive here is the fact that the allegation of what Justin Trudeau calls credible intelligence actually may have come from Indian diplomats here in Canada.

I want you, though, to listen to Ambassador Cohen speak for himself.

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DAVID COHEN, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO CANADA: There was shared intelligence among Five Eyes partners that helped lead Canada to making the statements that the prime minister made.

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NEWTON: The State Department declined to repeat that to me in a statement, Brianna. In fact, saying they do not comment on intelligence matters. And the ambassador has declined an interview with CNN.

Putting all of that to one side, you can start to see how sensitive this is. Both countries, India and Canada, raising their travel alerts. There are protests planned in both countries.

But more than anything, this is an incredibly sensitive topic, including for those countries you just mentioned and the Five Eyes, but principally the Biden administration.

India was supposed to be the centerpiece of their Indo-Pacific strategy. It likely remains so. And this kind of spat between the two allies just doesn't do anyone any good.

We're waiting to see if India continues to retaliate on this.

KEILAR: Paula, thank you so much. Obviously, we know this continues as a story. And we know you'll be watching.

Jim?

SCIUTTO: Former White House aide, Cassidy Hutchinson, speaking out for the first time since she testified about what exactly happened with Trump on January 6th. Her response to critics and what she'd like to see in the 2024 race. That's just ahead on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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[13:42:20]

KEILAR: Former Trump White House aide, Cassidy Hutchinson, says it would be easier for her to, quote, "continue being complicit about what happened behind the scenes on January 6th." But instead, she chose to tell the truth to House investigators.

Those comments came in the first TV interview since providing that testimony during the January 6th hearings last summer, which included this secondhand story about the president allegedly attacking his own Secret Service agent on the day of the insurrection.

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CASSIDY HUTCHINSON, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE AIDE: The president reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel.

Mr. Engle grabbed his arm. Said, sir, you need to take your hand off the steering wheel. We're going back to the West Wing. We're not going to the capital.

Mr. Trump then used his free hand to lunge towards Bobby Engle.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: CNN senior crime and justice reporter, Katelyn Polantz, has been following this story.

What else should we learn? And we should mention that the former president denied the happening of events out there.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME & JUSTICE REPORTER: Right. Cassidy Hutchinson is out there and she's standing by to what she testified to in the House in those series of testimony interviews she gave in recounting those stories.

One of the things, too, she was doing in the first interview with CBS was she was also being reflective about why she changed her story.

Talking a little bit about how there was a lot of pressure on her, including lawyers that had been paid for by Donald Trump initially. And that she didn't recall -- and that's what she said to the House at

first, she is didn't recall things but she knew in her heart that actually she did remember and she did have more to say. And that's why she went back in, to be truthful.

Here's a little bit more of what she said to CBS.

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HUTCHINSON: I felt torn a lot of the time because I knew what I knew. And I wanted to come forward with what I knew. But at the same time, I didn't want to feel like I was betraying them.

I heard the door click open and I turned around and I looked at my attorney and I said I can't do this. And I started to walk, and he gently pushed my shoulders and said, you can do this. And then we walked out.

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POLANTZ: So in that interview as well, she's specifically saying she still stands by the story of Donald Trump that she heard, the one she heard of Donald Trump lunging at the drive of the SUV, at the steering wheel of the SUV, wanting to go to the capitol.

If the others told the House they don't recall, perhaps they didn't. But she remembers what she heard.

KEILAR: Very Interesting to hear from her, I will say.

Katelyn Polantz, thank you so much.

Jim?

SCIUTTO: Now to some of the other headlines we're watching at this hour.

[13:44:57]

We're hearing for the first time from the Alabama dockworker at the center of that Montgomery brawl this summer. Dameion Pickett says he asked a group of boaters to move their position on the pontoon, rather, so his ship could dock. They refused.

Here's what more he had to say about that violent incident.

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DAMEION PICKETT, ALABAMA DOCK WORKER: Told the captain to get off and move the boat four steps to the right. That's it.

Words were exchanged and I'm like, I'm just doing my job. After we dock, we don't mind you all staying there, but not at this time while we're trying to dock.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: What exactly were they saying to you at the time?

PICKETT: Just some nasty words, some cuss words like violent. The alcohol involved -- they got beers in their hands while they're on the dock. So, I was trying my best to ignore them.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: What's going through your mind at that time?

PICKETT: The people on the boat, their safety. Getting them in, getting everybody off and getting them home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Montgomery police charged four white people in that incident. They have pleaded not guilty and are set to appear in court this week.

A black man who hit someone with a folding chair has also pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor assault.

Also, an Italian mob boss who evaded capture for nearly 30 years has died in prison just months after his capture.

Dubbed the last godfather by the Italian press, Mateo Messino Dinaro was convicted of numerous crimes, including for his role in planning the 1992 murders of two of Italy's anti-Mafia prosecutors.

The 61-year-old, who once claimed to have murdered enough people to fill a cemetery, was suffering from cancer at the time of his arrest.

And businesses across the mid-Atlantic states are cleaning up after Tropical Storm Ophelia. It's now been downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone.

But forecasters warn that while the storm is weakening as it treks up the east coast, it may still bring more rain to areas drenched over the weekend. Localized flashfloods are expected in some areas.

And still ahead, it's a time capsule of the ancient solar system. And now it's in the hands of NASA. Ahead, how a space rock from at least 4.5 billion years ago was dropped off by a passing spacecraft. It's pretty cool.

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[13:51:35]

SCIUTTO: NASA receives a special delivery.

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UNIDENTIFIED NASA EMPLOYEE: Touch Down?

UNIDENTIFIED NASA EMPLOYEE: (INAUDIBLE) has touched down.

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SCIUTTO: So what touched down exactly? The space agency now has its hands on a sample from an asteroid. Seven years after launching to space, a NASA spacecraft delivered a capsule containing a sample.

CNN's Kristin Fisher joins us now.

How did we get this little thing? How do we pick it up and get it back to earth?

KRISTIN FISHER, CNN SPACE & DEFENSE CORRESPONDENT: So it started back in 2016. NASA launched the Osiris-REx spacecraft. It then travelled seven years, four billion miles to this asteroid, a very ancient asteroid called Bennu.

From there, they had to circle it, orbit it, find the best place to get up close and collect the sample. And they thought it was going to be one big rock, but they actually described it as like a pit of plastic balls.

So the asteroid Bennu almost grabbed the entire spacecraft itself. But they were able to collect the sample. And the spacecraft was able to it back to earth, which is what we saw yesterday.

That's an animation of it re-entering the earth's atmosphere at temperatures of about 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. And then it landed just a cool 11 miles an hour with the help of some big parachutes yesterday.

SCIUTTO: So crazy. It travelled millions of miles, landed on an asteroid, picked something up, came back to earth. That's very cool.

What do we do with this now? What do we expect to learn from it?

FISHER: Right now, it's in the process of being transported from where it landed in Utah to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, which is where scientists will spend the next two years studying it.

And what they hope to learn are twofold. They want to learn about if this really the type of asteroid that could have seeded life on earth all those years ago because it might have contained those elements like water, carbon, things that could have seeded life on earth here as we know it.

Then there's also the planetary defense aspect. This is an asteroid that has a very small chance of hitting earth in about 150 years.

SCIUTTO: So short of sending Ben Afflack, we'll know how to defend ourselves from it some day?

FISHER: Yes.

SCIUTTO: OK. So this has a special back story in that a rock star had a piece of discovering this rock?

FISHER: I had no idea about this until he mentioned it yesterday. Brian May, Queen's guitarist, also an astrophysicist. Who knew? I did not.

But he created the stereoscopic images from the spacecraft's data. And those images are what the team used to determine where it would be safe to try to collect a sample from the asteroid Bennu.

So he played a critical role in all of this. But he said, sorry, guys, I couldn't be there yesterday because he is rehearsing with Queen for a concert.

SCIUTTO: Special delivery for NASA. I think special delivery for you recently, too. Right?

FISHER: Yes.

SCIUTTO: A little baby arrived.

FISHER: Baby number two.

SCIUTTO: Fantastic. Congratulations, Kristin.

FISHER: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Brianna?

KEILAR: Welcome back.

So glad to have her back.

[13:54:25]

So with six days until the government runs out of money, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has a tough choice to make. Does he risk a shutdown to keep his job or does he cross his Republican hardliners by working with Democrats? We're live from the Hill ahead.

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SCIUTTO: Senator Menendez speaks publicly for the first time since he was indicted on bribery charges. We'll tell you how he explains the treasure trove of cash and gold found in his home and House colleagues in Congress and Democrats are now responding.

KEILAR: They knew this was coming but Republicans are still fighting. The government is running out of cash here in just days. And now the Biden administration is looking to leverage the dysfunction.

And later, salt from the Gulf of Mexico could threaten the drinking water in New Orleans. We'll tell you how the Army Corps of Engineers are scrambling to deal with this.

[13:59:55]

We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming into CNN NEWS CENTRAL.