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India and Pakistan Trade Blame as Conflict Spirals; Judge Orders Immediate Release of Tufts Student Detained by ICE; Migrants Waited Hours on a Bus, Expecting Deportation to Libya; Soviet-Era Spacecraft Due to Crash Back to Earth. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired May 09, 2025 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: We're getting new reports of cross-border fighting between India and Pakistan. That is some new video of explosions from shelling in the city of Jammu, a city in the Indian- administered part of the contested border region, during an overnight blackout. A Pakistani official says five people were killed when India launched a drone and a shelling attack today.

India is accusing Pakistan of launching up to 400 drones overnight, targeting dozens of sites. Pakistan denies that claim. A Pakistani government source tells CNN Pakistan is leaving room for diplomacy to try to de-escalate tensions.

The two countries have repeatedly accused each other of launching attacks since this conflict escalated two days ago, raising fears that the two nuclear powers could be on the brink of a wider conflict.

We're joined now by Brett McGurk, a CNN global affairs analyst. He's also the former White House coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa.

What are you watching here, Brett?

BRETT MCGURK, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: I think, Brianna, what you have here is two nuclear-armed powers going up the escalation ladder. So, on Tuesday night, you had these unprecedented attacks from India into Pakistan, really deeper than we've seen in decades. And everybody's been bracing for a Pakistani response to what will happen after that.

You also have here what's called a security dilemma. Two countries not really in direct communication, watching what the others might do, a real risk of miscalculation. I have to say, on the night of the attacks, the airstrikes on Tuesday, Secretary Rubio, in his role as National Security Advisor, spoke to his counterparts in both capitals, and then they spoke, the Indian National Security Advisor and the Pakistani National Security Advisor.

That's good, because that's what the U.S. has to do here. You know, we are a major defense partner of India. We're a close partner of Pakistan. One of the first national security wins of this administration was actually extradition of the terrorist responsible for the Kabul bombing in 2021 from Pakistan. So we have very close relations here. And in another conflict in 2019, we actually helped simmer it down.

Secretary Pompeo at the time, an Indian pilot, was shot down, and we actually helped broker the return of that pilot to India. The conflict and the escalation ended.

So but right now, we're in a very tense environment. This is still going on. I think both capitals want to keep it contained. But you never know in these situations, and I think it's really the time for some real diplomacy.

KEILAR: So Secretary Rubio is engaged in this high-stakes game of telephone, albeit he is a, you know, these are skilled practitioners, so hopefully this is going very well. But without them in direct communication, that does pose challenges. So what does the U.S. need to be doing? Is there more that it needs to be doing in this?

MCGURK: We need to be actively, actively engaged.

[13:35:00]

The vice president said this is fundamentally none of our business. That's really not true.

When you have two nuclear-armed powers, both very close U.S. partners, very different countries, obviously, kind of technically in a state of war, we need active U.S. diplomacy. Look, Rubio was right to make that call the other night, but he can't do everything. We have crises around the world.

You have Ukraine. You have Iran talks going on. You have a very important presidential trip to the Middle East coming up over the course of next week. That has to be coordinated. That's something the national security advisor would usually do. Right now, we have Rubio playing all these different roles, and things can really get out of hand.

So, look, I give him I think making that call was right because you want to get the parties in direct communication, but we're not out of this yet. I think the real experts of this situation are very concerned. This is unprecedented.

For the first time, actually, two nuclear-armed powers are using drones to attack each other. So a lot of red lines are being crossed. Everybody wants it contained, and frankly, the U.S., this is the role we have to play. I understand defining our national interests narrowly, but we do have responsibilities in the world, and this is something that we can really engage in, as the Trump administration did back in 2019 to try to tamp this down.

KEILAR: And you see the stakes when someone like Rubio is wearing so many hats as he is right now. There's just so much to be done. India is a major defense partner of the U.S. Pakistan relies so much

on Chinese military technology. Is there an interest in looking at how this squares off American-made military technology against U.S.-made -- or against Chinese-made?

MCGURK: Well, that's what makes this so complicated. You have Turkish drones. You have Chinese drones.

KEILAR: Everything, Russian jets.

MCGURK: It is a very combustible situation. And so, yes, I think military analysts will be looking at this.

It's unprecedented having this type of drone warfare between two nuclear-armed powers. It's kind of a glimpse of the future.

You know, a lot about this conflict goes back to first principles for me. What is one of the major risks in the world? It is non-state extremist groups throwing the global order off kilter with an attack that you don't see coming. That's what happened in Kashmir about three weeks ago.

It's also about old-school diplomacy. We need American diplomacy here. This is our interest. We are friends with both of these countries. Look, Pakistan has to crack down on these terrorist groups. This has been a perennial thing.

But also, we want this to be contained. And I think the president's trip to the Middle East, again, very important. He'll be in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and UAE.

Also in the Middle East. Nobody wants to see this flare up. Those countries have important relations with both capitals.

So it's a time for diplomacy. But there's something about bandwidth on a national security team. There's only so many things you can do at once.

And planning a presidential trip like what's going to happen next week takes a lot of bandwidth. Trying to tamp down a military crisis between two nuclear-armed powers, a lot of bandwidth. Again, Ukraine, Russia, Iran, the Yemen crisis.

There's a lot happening here. I didn't even mention Gaza and the hostage crisis. That also requires some full-time management.

So a lot happening. Again, I give Rubio the right -- I think he did the right thing, making that call the other night. But it can't stop there. We need to really stay at it here.

KEILAR: Yes, as you said, the U.S. has the areas where it wants to focus. But these non-state actors, they get a vote and they can steal some of the focus as well.

MCGURK: That's absolutely right.

KEILAR: Brett McGurk, always great to speak with you.

MCGURK: Thanks so much.

KEILAR: Thank you so much -- Boris.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: We have breaking news into CNN. A judge in Vermont has ordered the immediate release of the Tufts University student who was detained by ICE while walking in her neighborhood. You may recall this video.

Her lawyers argued that she was detained for writing an essay criticizing the university's response to pro-Palestinian students. CNN's Omar Jimenez is following the story for us from New York.

Omar, it's important to point out the Trump administration has not directly charged her or accused her of a specific crime, right?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we have not seen that to this point. A lot of the proceedings have centered around the authority that the administration has detained previous people, protesters or activists, saying that this person was providing support to, in this case, Hamas. But again, not direct evidence that we have seen presented in court.

Now, this particular story and this particular moment is pretty significant because this is a federal judge ordering the release of Rumeysa Ozturk. She's a Tufts University student that was detained. We showed some of the video a little bit earlier, but that was a video that was going viral at the time as plainclothes officers moved in for that detention.

And she was detained a year after co-authoring a campus newspaper op- ed that was critical of Tufts University's response to the war in Gaza. This was some of that video that we were talking about a little bit earlier.

Now, her arrest and taking into custody here, this essentially six weeks of being in custody in a Louisiana immigration detention center, despite where she was taken into custody.

[13:40:00]

Now, previously, an appeals court ruled that she needed to be -- that this needed to play out in Vermont, which is where this -- where this decision is coming out from, the decision to have her release.

So those are proceedings that are ongoing as well. But bottom line she's now the second high-profile case of an activist taken into custody by federal immigration to be released. And we even heard outside of -- outside of the courthouse where the proceedings were going on, Ozturk appeared virtually.

There were cheers as sort of the news came through saying that, that Trump has lost from people who were sort of waiting outside of the courthouse.

SANCHEZ: Omar Jimenez, thank you so much for that update. We'll keep an eye on this story. Thanks so much.

Next, the Trump administration appears to have aborted an attempt to deport migrants to Libya. We have some brand new reporting for you coming in just a few minutes.

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[13:45:00]

SANCHEZ: So, we're learning of what appears to be an aborted plan by the Trump administration to send migrants to Libya. An immigration attorney tells CNN that earlier this week, his client told him that he and a dozen other detainees were bused to a military plane believed to be bound for the North African country, but after waiting on that bus for hours, the migrants were abruptly taken back to a detention center.

CNN's Priscilla Alvarez spoke to the attorney's client thought he and the others were being sent to Libya. She joins us now live. So, Priscilla, what happened here?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So, this was an hours-long ordeal that started in the very early morning hours of Wednesday. This is according to the migrant who shared with his attorney what happened as soon as he was back at the facility. But just to start with where it all began.

So, according to this migrant, they were woken up in the early morning hours of Wednesday. They were put on a bus, him as well as 12 other detainees of different nationalities, where they went to what he described as a military base. And they were positioned next to a military aircraft, where they just sat on the bus waiting for hours, until then abruptly being turned around, sent back to the detention facility without any explanation.

Now, what this migrant had known, he's from the Philippines, and he had been told earlier in the week by Immigration and Customs Enforcement that he was going to be deported to Libya, which caught him by surprise. Because he does have a removal order, but there were plans for him to be deported to the Philippines, not to Libya. So, that really set off a chain of events where his attorney was just trying to get answers over the course of the week as to why he would be destined to another country.

So, ultimately, when he did return to the facility, he was able to call his attorney and he described everything that had occurred over the morning of Wednesday. And this really has been alarming for the attorneys who were representing some of these clients, because there isn't a reasoning or explanation that they can find from ICE as to why they would be sent to a country when they already have removal orders, but to their home country. So, this has caused a lot of confusion.

This attorney has been able to stay in touch with his client multiple times a day as they try to sort the next steps.

SANCHEZ: What about the legality of this? ALVAREZ: So, a federal judge earlier this year said that the administration could not send migrants to what we call third countries, countries that are not their own, until and unless they were provided written notice and they were given the ability to contest it.

What happened this week is, as all of this was playing out in real time, those same attorneys went to the federal judge and said, look, we are very concerned there could be a flight heading out to Libya now with people who are not from Libya. And what the federal judge said in that moment was, look, I gave an order, I provided the protocol if the administration were to want to do this, and it seems from what the attorneys were telling the federal judge that they could be -- they, the administration -- could be in violation.

Now, we know that this plane was ultimately, did not take off to Libya. In fact, a defense official is saying that it went to Guantanamo Bay to take back military personnel. So, it still remains to be seen what happens next.

The Libyan government, however, has pushed back and said in a statement, quote, It categorically denies any agreement or coordination with U.S. authorities regarding the deportation of migrants to Libya.

So, we'll see what happens next. But as we've reported, Boris, there have been conversations within the administration to send migrants to Libya as well as other countries.

SANCHEZ: Priscilla Alvarez, thank you so much for the update on that.

Still to come, move over, Butch and Suni. This Soviet spacecraft was stuck in space for 50 years, and now it's just hours away from crash landing on Earth, and we don't know exactly where.

[13:50:00]

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KEILAR: After drifting through space for 53 whole years, a robotic Soviet spacecraft is expected to crash back to Earth probably tomorrow. This is Cosmos 482. It malfunctioned on its mission to explore Venus back in 1972 and that left it stranded in orbit around the Earth. Ever since, it has been slowly, very slowly indeed, spiraling back towards us.

SANCHEZ: CNN correspondent Tom Foreman joins us now. So Tom, tell us more about Cosmos. It's hard to get an idea of how big it is and what impact it might have when it slams back into Earth.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's got sort of an irregular shape, but for our practical purposes, imagine it being about as big as this table, weighing about 1,000 pounds. If you look at the specs on it, it's interesting. It went up truly 20 years before the Soviet Union stopped being the Soviet Union. So this is a Soviet spacecraft, and it's pretty good size. Launched in 1972, it was supposed to go to Venus. It was more than 1,000 pounds, we noted.

Those are sort of the original specs there. We think what we're talking about now is what I described. Right now, it's probably traveling about 17,000 miles an hour, but as it burns into the atmosphere in this sort of flattened-out trajectory coming down, it will slow down to maybe 150 miles an hour before it makes impact.

So that's what we know about the return at this moment.

KEILAR: OK, so when, where?

FOREMAN: When, where that's the big question. When, where are both of the big questions. If you look at the tracking that some folks out there have done on where this thing is going, see, this is the thing.

It's in an elliptical orbit, meaning sort of an oval orbit around the Earth, and depending on when it passes, probably based on orbits, probably passing every 90 minutes or so, it can hit any number of places out there.

[13:55:00]

The best guess right now is that sometime in the wee hours of Saturday morning, it comes down maybe out in the Pacific. I mean, 70 percent of the Earth is covered with water, so odds of hitting water are quite good.

But I have to tell you, that comes with a massive margin for error, like hours and hours and hours either way. And traveling at the speed it's traveling, that means it can go, you know, a long distance in that amount of time.

SANCHEZ: There's a lot of states, U.S. states, that are part of that grid.

KEILAR: And territories. Ours is not far from there.

SANCHEZ: Indeed. I wonder, Tom, what happens if somebody discovers this thing? Let's say, fortunately, we get lucky, it doesn't slam into a house, it doesn't hurt anybody, which are possibilities. This has happened before. But this just kind of lands somewhere. If you find it, can you claim it?

FOREMAN: Well, I wouldn't touch it. I wouldn't touch it. I'd call the authorities and say, come deal with this thing, because, you know, it's been out there exposed to a lot of radiation for a long time.

And this is a spacecraft. This is titanium clad, and it was supposed to go through the atmosphere of Venus, which is very robust and very difficult compared to ours, full of sulfuric acid, very tough place to go. So there is some thought that maybe if the cladding on this has survived all these years, it might survive intact to get back. What's more, there's a parachute connected to this thing. Most people think there's no chance it would deploy, or maybe it's already deployed, but if it opened and it floated back to Earth, I don't know. The odds of it hurting somebody are actually very, very low.

After all, I've been drifting through the cosmos for more than 50 years, and I don't think I've hurt anybody yet.

SANCHEZ: Fair, fair.

KEILAR: Oh, that's awesome. All right, Tom.

FOREMAN: Planner's keepers.

KEILAR: Yes. Don't touch it. It's going to be toasty, folks.

FOREMAN: Don't touch it.

KEILAR: All right, Tom Foreman, thank you.

So next, the president signaling he is flexible on tariffs ahead of these critical talks this weekend with China. The White House just gave us an update.

Stay with us for that.

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