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London's Heathrow Airport Shut Down, Flights Worldwide Affected; Ocasio-Cortez Urges Democrats to Fight Harder at Rally; Judge: Trump Administration Can't Deport Georgetown University Fellow; DOJ Returns to Court Amid Legal Fight Over Deportation Flights; NTSB: 68 Bridges Need to be Assessed for Risk of Collapse. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired March 21, 2025 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN ANCHOR: Boats, motorcycles, beer, poultry, beef, and produce such as soybeans, tomatoes, raspberries. In total, the tariffs hit an estimated $20 billion worth of U.S. goods. And the delay comes as Trump still plans on reciprocal tariffs starting April 2nd, which he has repeatedly said will be, quote, Liberation Day in America.

We are also continuing to follow breaking news this morning as global travel chaos that could last weeks hits airports around the world, rolling out emergency measures as hundreds of thousands of travelers remain stranded. This was all caused by a fire at a power substation near Europe's biggest airport, London's Heathrow, triggered a power outage. Now, that shut down Heathrow and then forced hundreds of flights to turn around midair.

Just moments ago, fire crews in London updated on the major incident caused by a transformer with more than 6,600 gallons of cooking oil.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JONATHAN SMITH, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LFB: There remains no power at Heathrow Airport Terminal 2 or Terminal 4. The incident caused London Heathrow to close the airport and planes to be rerouted. We continue to work very closely with our partners to minimize disruption.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: It's cooling oil, not cooking oil. Just note that. But still a major travel chaos underway right now.

CNN's Richard Quest was on a flight from Brazil to London as it all unfolded.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS EDITOR AT LARGE: Yes, I was on my way from Santiago in Chile to London via Sao Paolo. We got to Sao Paolo. I boarded the plane. We were on there for about four hours. It was the BA flight from Sao Paolo to London. The crew were great, but there's nothing you can do about it. We're

all on our phones. We're looking. We can see what's happening in haze in West London.

And I think there's a sort of a quantum leap in one's mind that a fire thousands of miles away at an airport or near an airport has this tentacles and ripples effect around the world. And after four hours of sitting on the plane, drinking coffee, gossiping and chatting, they cancelled the flight.

And the basic rule when things go wrong, Arnie, is when things go wrong, look after yourself. So I grabbed a cab and found a hotel where I'm going to hopefully stay.

Interestingly, thankfully, my plane is here. So when Heathrow opens up in a few hours time, I think I'm going to be OK to get to London. The problem is for those people whose planes never even left Heathrow, because now they are in a rolling series of delays as the planes arrive and other passengers take priority.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: All right, good luck to Richard. Thanks so much for that report -- John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I think we need a Quest cam. We need to follow Richard Quest as he attempts to get back home. We'll see if he makes it there if optimism was founded.

All right, overnight, Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez kicked off the first stop of what they call their fighting oligarchy tour. The rally featured criticism for President Trump, but Ocasio-Cortez sent a clear message to her own party as well.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): This isn't just about Republicans. We need a Democratic Party that fights harder for us, too. I want you to look at every level of office around and support brawlers who fight because those are the ones who can actually win against Republicans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right, with us now is Christy Setzer, a Democratic strategist in Madison, Gesiotto, a political strategist in Trump 2020 board member. Christy, I want to start with you there. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the congresswoman, says Democrats need brawlers.

And she really also did, if you listen to the whole speech, hold the mirror up to the Democratic Party and say, this is on us. What do you think?

CHRISTY SETZER, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I think she's absolutely right. I wouldn't say that this is on us. But what I would say is that we need to make a clear contrast between what is happening in the Republican Party under Trump and Elon Musk's DOGE right now. Which is frankly a nightmare, America, where you are afraid to get on a plane because they keep falling out of the sky and we're cutting air traffic controllers. The Department of Education is shutting down. So I hope you don't have a kid who has special needs because IEP programs and 504s are going away.

You know, to -- Elon Musk has access to your Social Security and IRS and very important and very private data. These are all things that people should be incredibly and are incredibly angry against.

And what Democrats need to be doing right now is saying absolutely not, not on our watch. We understand that we don't control many of the levers of government right now. But what we can do is lend our voice and say this is not happening.

[07:35:02]

And with the few levers that we do have, for example, we could have tried to stop cloture on the continuing resolution. Basically, we could have tried to stop the terrible Trump policies of his budget. We need to make sure that we're doing that.

So that is why you're seeing anger in the Democratic Party as well as in the Republican Party right now that our leadership, many of them, we believe are not fighting hard enough.

BERMAN: It's interesting because in that answer, the name Elon Musk came up at least twice. It might have been three or four times there. So, Madison, I want to read to you this quote that's in Politico this morning because they picked up on the vibe that was just tossed right there.

It says, is Musk the new Trump? That question may sound glib, but here is what we're getting at. For the last decade, opposing Trump has been the single biggest cause uniting the Democratic Party's disparate factions. They've run against Trump in election after election. And yet with Trump's approval rating and popularity significantly higher than Musk's, Democrats seem to be tweaking their strategy a bit, turning Musk into the boogeyman on the campaign trail, especially in swing states Trump just carried.

Is Musk -- how much of a vulnerability, Madison, do you see Elon Musk right now as Democrats travel the country?

MADISON, GESIOTTO, TRUMP 2020 BOARD MEMBER: You know, if I was a Democrat right now, I'd be furious. I think they very, as we all saw, gravely miscalculated 2024. They miscalculated where the American people stood on many issues and suffered significant losses as a result.

Heading in, obviously, into 2026, typically a very difficult year for whatever party holds the White House. I don't think that necessarily is guaranteed to be true this time if Democrats don't get things together. They can't seem to figure out how they're going to shift or what the new leadership is going to look like. I think they run the risk of going too far to the left, as we've seen really over the past 10 years in the party, to the Ocasio-Cortez's of the party. Yes, of course, I think Democrats want people to fight for them as Republicans, as Americans do in general. But the facts speak for themselves.

I mean, you see Trump has that all-time high approval rating for him. We see more Americans since 2004 saying the country's headed in the right direction, while Democrats suffer their worst approval rating since CNN started polling it in 1992.

And then, of course, you mentioned DOGE. You mentioned Elon Musk, as Christy mentioned repeatedly, and as Democrats mentioned all day, every day on the network. I don't think the polling is really reflective of the loudest voices in the room at a lot of these town halls. You look at NBC's newest polling.

Should DOGE have been created? More people say yes than no. And then, of course, should it continue, which is the greater question? Way more people, over 60 percent of people say yes. There is some differentiation, of course, of the speed or of how they do it. But we still see the most amount of people in that poll saying, yes, it should continue and actually more needs to be done.

BERMAN: Musk is underwater. Musk is significantly underwater. And Musk's numbers have dropped since this administration began.

GESIOTTO: But DOGE is not. And I think that's the point I'm making. That's what's reflective of the administration, is what people feel about the government and why they elected Trump. And they obviously trusted Trump to put these important jobs in the hands of people. He's not the only person in government. So they knew going into 2024, he's going to have to pick people around him.

And I think a lot of Republicans that I'm talking to, both more conservative Republicans and moderate Republicans, feel pretty good about the direction and where they see things going in six months, a year from now.

BERMAN: Christy.

SETZER: They shouldn't. They should not feel good. They should see these angry town halls that for the most part, the NRCC is actually telling them to no longer hold anymore because they don't want their candidates to have to face the anger from their own voters.

They should see these as an early harbinger of voter anger that impacts election results coming up. Right. So the first real test that we're going to see of that, we've seen a couple of special elections in which Democrats are overperforming in the last few months.

But the first big test is actually going to be on April 1st with the Wisconsin Supreme Court election. Now, that is one, as Madison, I'm sure, knows that Elon Musk has thrown a lot of money into to try to influence. Right. But can that overcome voter anger at everything that is happening right now? The truth is, is that people think that government is, you know, inefficient. We can sort of tweak. We can -- but they don't want to take that ax. They don't want to take the, you know, the sledgehammer or whatever that that Musk and Trump think is going to be popular.

That is a fierce misread of the American electorate right now.

BERMAN: Very quickly, Madison. There are some Democrats --

GESIOTTO: And how about you look at -- you talk about --

BERMAN: I want to get I want to get one more question on judges here, because I do think it's important right now, because there are people who think that President Trump is overstepped when he called for the impeachment of Judge Boasberg here.

And there are Democrats quoted in Punchbowl telling them, quote, We're hoping these morons go the judge impeachment route. The more the better. We'd love to eat up time on the clock over something that won't happen.

Are you concerned that this is a bit of a wrong target, Madison?

[07:40:00]

GESIOTTO: I'm not super concerned right now about that. But in response to what Christie had to say about a lot of these town halls, you know, on the network, you continue to see people saying there's no paid agitator. Maybe there is. Maybe there isn't.

But one thing I think interesting to note, we all know, working in politics, how difficult it can be to get people out sometimes to these political events. There was an opening for a Republican congressman, North Carolina, Congressman Harrigan. He had a district office open up.

His staff was able to track well over half of the people that came to that from being not even from the district at all. And so I think these loudest voices, as I mentioned earlier, in the room aren't always reflective of the way people feel within districts, which is very important going into these congressional races that we're going to be focused on in 2026 and some of the Senate races as well.

BERMAN: We will see. All right. Madison Gesiotto, Christy Setzer --

SETZER: We'll see again.

BERMAN: Great to see you both this morning. Thank you -- Jessica.

DEAN: This morning, attorneys for a Georgetown University fellow are working to get him released from a detention facility after a federal judge ruled the Trump administration cannot deport him. Badar Khan Suri is an Indian national studying at Georgetown on a visa. Both the university and his family have said they're not sure why he was detained.

Joining us now is CNN's Katelyn Polantz. Katelyn, what more are you learning about this case?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: I'm not sure why he was detained, but clearly part of the immigration crackdown at the Trump administration. So this story is about this Indian national, a research fellow at Georgetown University who had been studying the Middle East. On Monday when he was detained, his visa revoked, he was put in detention and he's been in Louisiana.

His attorneys have gone to a federal court to try and make sure he stays in the United States and isn't deported at this time. They want to make sure that there is due process for him regarding his detention.

Now one of the things about him is that his wife is a Palestinian and her father was a political official in Gaza. So the Department of Homeland Security spokespeople have been saying quite publicly that the secretary of state made a determination that he could be an adverse foreign policy -- or bring adverse foreign policy consequences to the United States.

Here's a statement from them on social media that he was a foreign exchange student at Georgetown University, actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting anti-Semitism on social media. Suri has close connections to a known or suspected terrorist who is a senior advisor to Hamas.

Now this issue is before this federal court. His lawyers are -- they are going against what the State Department is saying -- Department of Homeland Security here is saying. His attorney says that they believe this detention is based on the speech that maybe -- made by this man and his family about Palestine and that that is unconstitutional.

Here's a little bit more from Suri's attorney.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HASSAN AHMAD, BADAR KHAN SURI'S ATTORNEY: He is, he's still fasting as an observant Muslim during Ramadan and trying to keep his spirits up. But it is, it is very difficult. And he understands that he is a political prisoner. Those were his words. And he's grateful for the outpouring of support that he has received.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

POLANTZ: Jessica, even though the judge is keeping him in the United States at this time, it will not be the last word in court and we're going to be closely watching both what the Trump administration is saying about detention, this detention and other detentions like these that may be happening in other parts of the country as well as what they're going to be arguing in court. And if they will be adhering to what the federal judges say as they look more closely at this particular case.

DEAN: Yes, all right, more to come on this. Katelyn Polantz, thank you so much for that reporting -- John.

BERMAN: All right. The employee that Sean Combs once called his right hand woman has broken her silence for the first time on the sexual assault allegations against her and her former boss.

And Disney showing where it stands on DEI. Investors overwhelmingly voting against an anti DEI proposal at their annual meeting.

[07:45:43]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DEAN: Woefully insufficient, strong words directed at the Justice Department from a federal judge slamming the DOJ's response to his orders to turn over details on the deportation flights carried out last weekend. Flights the judge temporarily blocked. Those DOJ attorneys set to return to court today as the clearly frustrated judge is demanding more answers.

We're joined now by CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig. Good to see you. Good morning to you. What else are you watching for when the DOJ returns to court this morning?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Jess, this saga continues. It's been going on all week as this judge, Judge Boasberg tries to determine whether DOJ intentionally defied his order to turn those planes around. All week long the judge has been saying to DOJ, I need the details. I want the specifics about those airplanes and the people on it. All week long DOJ has been responding by saying we'll give you some of the information you want, but not all of it.

And now what Judge Boasberg has done is said two things. First of all, he has again demanded that information. He's demanded DOJ to explain why they have not defied him. And then second of all, he has told DOJ, I need to know whether you're going to invoke this thing called the state secrets privilege, which DOJ has made noises about, but the judge has said he is skeptical that it will apply.

[07:50:04]

So the judge is continuing to try to get that vital information. He needs to decide whether his orders have been defied or not.

DEAN: Yes, and you make the point he keeps demanding this more information, but they just have deflected at every turn here. How do they continue to get away with that? Is there a breaking point for deflecting that request for more information?

HONIG: I have no idea how they continue to get away with it. I mean, as somebody who worked at the Justice Department for a long time, it is and was unthinkable for a federal district judge to say you, the Department of Justice, have to provide me this information.

And for the Justice Department's response to just say, no, thank you. That's not an option that I was ever aware of or that DOJ ever abided by. Now, to be sure, DOJ often disagrees with judges, doesn't like their rulings, will brief an issue to say, hey, judge, we think you're wrong. But just saying no, we're not giving you this information is completely unprecedented. I've never heard of that happening.

That's why this has mushroomed into such a big deal. Look, the deportation of those gang members, the applicability of the Alien Enemies Act is a big legal question to be determined.

But whether DOJ has just ignored this judge's rulings, that is a big deal institutionally for the courts and for the executive branch.

DEAN: Yes, so underline that when trying to understand exactly what this all means. I also, while we have you, want to ask you about a separate ruling. It's a pretty scathing one that came down against DOGE and its access to Social Security records. What happened there?

HONIG: Yes, so this is a different federal judge in Maryland who has temporarily -- and all these rulings, by the way, are temporary -- has temporarily blocked DOGE from accessing broad swaths of confidential and private data at the Social Security Administration. The ruling really basically says that DOGE has violated all of these semi-obscure procedural rules about how you have to access and handle that information. The ruling really actually reads more like an operational critique of DOGE than a strictly legal ruling.

And I think it's important to note, this ruling barring DOGE from access to that information is actually in some degree of conflict with other rulings we've seen from other district courts that have declined to block DOGE from accessing private information because those other courts have said, well, a plaintiff, someone trying to block DOGE here, they have to show what we call irreparable harm. They have to show some specific concrete damage, and they've been unable to do that. So we see different judges looking at DOGE's access to information coming out really differently.

This judge yesterday said they're blocked, but other judges have said, no, we're not blocking them. This is part of what happens when you have dozens of lawsuits all over the country, all filed in different districts. Sometimes you get decisions that are not necessarily consistent with each other.

DEAN: Exactly. And so just lastly, how does this one get resolved, do you think, looking in your magic eight ball there?

HONIG: Yes. Well, as these cases move up through the appellate courts, up to the circuit level, some of the inconsistency should be resolved. Ultimately, if the Supreme Court takes any of these cases, that will be the sort of ultimate resolution.

But this is part of the problem when you do have single district court judges. And by the way, the Trump administration, they complain often and loudly about it, but they're not the first administration to have this problem. I mean, it dogged the Biden administration, it dogged the Obama administration as well.

So it's a big structural problem in the courts, and it can yield confusing, inconsistent results. DEAN: All right, more to come on this. Elie Honig, as always, thanks so much. We appreciate you -- John.

BERMAN: All right, new this morning, nearly one year after the Baltimore Bridge collapse, the NTSB says that 68 bridges across the country need to be evaluated now to determine if they are at risk of a collapse if they get hit by a ship. It was last March, one year ago, a container ship lost power and slammed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge, causing it to fall apart. Six construction workers on the bridge were killed.

CNN's Gabe Cohen has the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GABE COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, transportation safety officials issued an urgent warning on Thursday, saying that 68 bridges across the United States, including some of the country's most famous, the Golden Gate, the George Washington Bridge, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge just down the river from where the Key Bridge collapsed in Baltimore, all need to undergo an immediate vulnerability assessment to see if they're at risk of a catastrophic collapse from a vessel collision, like what we saw last year in Baltimore.

There is preexisting federal guidance that recommends that the owners of these older bridges go back and do these risk assessments. But the problem is they have never been done on these 68 bridges, nor was one done on the Key Bridge before it collapsed. Although in recent months, investigators have gone back and done that assessment, and they have determined that the risk level for the Key Bridge was nearly 30 times, 30 times the federal threshold to be considered safe from a vessel collision.

[07:55:02]

I asked the head of the National Transportation Safety Board if she thinks those other 68 bridges could be just as much at risk.

This was her answer.

JENNIFER HOMENDY, NTSB CHAIR: We're hoping it's very few, but we don't know that at this time. We believe they don't know that, and they need to determine what their risk is and start to put in those protective measures if warranted.

COHEN: And those protective measures could include building structures in the water, like dolphins and fenders, really anything that can protect the pillars of the bridge from a vessel that loses control and steers off course, like what we saw with the Dali cargo ship last March.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: This is wild. Waiting at the DMV, now even more of a drag in Miami. Officials say scalpers have been hoarding free DMV appointments, then selling them for as much as $250. And they're apparently using bots and fake accounts to exploit the booking system, and then that prevents everyone else from scheduling visits, creating longer waits.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not a good idea at all. We've been waiting for hours.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, that's wrong. That's wrong. That's totally wrong.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I find that ridiculous because it's not fair to people who don't know it. We can't make the appointments on the actual website.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: As you would imagine, officials in Miami trying to make hoarding free appointments illegal.

Disney investors have overwhelmingly rejected a proposal that the entertainment giant cut ties with a prominent LGBTQ ratings program. The proposal, submitted by a right-wing think tank, the National Center for Public Policy Research, would have removed Disney from the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index.

Just 1 percent of shareholders, though, voted for it. Disney did scale back its diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives last month after a long history of championing LGBTQ rights.

And the Boston Celtics, one of the most successful NBA teams in history, has sold for more than $6 billion. A group of investors, led by a billionaire, buying the team. But that billionaire, Bill Chisholm, grew up in Massachusetts and is reportedly a lifelong Celtics fan. The check he's writing sets a record for a U.S. pro sports team. The previous owners bought the Celtics in 2002 for $360 million -- so quite a return on investment there. The team has won 18 championships in its history.

And Blake Lively is asking a judge to dismiss Justin Baldoni's $400 million lawsuit against her. Her attorneys are arguing California law protects sexual harassment victims by prohibiting retaliatory defamation suits. She sued Baldoni for alleged harassment on the set of their movie, It Ends With Us. He denied those accusations and then countersued Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, claiming they hijacked the film and tried to destroy his career. Earlier this week, Reynolds asked a judge to drop him from that lawsuit.

BERMAN: All right, this morning, the former chief of staff for Sean Combs is responding publicly for the first time after being named in three civil lawsuits alongside her former boss. Let's get right to CNN's Lisa France for the latest on this. What's she saying?

LISA RESPERS FRANCE, CNN ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER: Good morning, John. She's, of course, trying to distance herself from what's going on with her former boss. Combs, of course, is facing dozens of civil suits and also criminal charges.

We have to be clear that Kristina Khorram is not facing any criminal charges, but she is a defendant in three of the civil suits. And she released an extensive statement in which she said, for months, horrific accusations have been made about me in various lawsuits regarding my former boss. These false allegations of my involvement are causing irreparable and incalculable damage to my reputation and the emotional well-being of myself and my family. I have never condoned or aided and abetted the sexual assault of anyone, nor have I drugged anyone. The idea that I could be accused of playing a role in or even being a bystander to the rape of anyone is beyond upsetting, disturbing, and unthinkable. That is not who I am, and my heart goes out to all victims of sexual assault. I am confident that the allegations against me will be proven to be untrue, she said, John.

BERMAN: So I've heard her described as a chief of staff, the right- hand woman to Sean Combs. What role did she play inside that world?

FRANCE: Well, John, we have Combs' own words to know exactly how invaluable she was to his company. She was his chief of staff. She did work for him for over a decade.

And in a 2021 Facebook post, he introduced her, referred to her as KK, which he said she was known as. And he said that she keeps everything in my life and my business running. He also said in the post that she had been his right hand for the past eight years and consistently proven to execute and get (expletive) done.