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Artificial Intelligence to Transform How Wars are Fought; Kilmar Abrego Garcia Will Be Returned to U.S. to Face Criminal Charges; Interview with Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-MA): Abrego Garcia's Representative in Congress. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired June 06, 2025 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: All this week we've been looking at the future of our world with artificial intelligence and today we look at something that's existed since the dawn of civilization, but that could also be transformed by AI -- war and the abilities of nations to wage it against one another.

Here's David Sachs, President Trump's artificial intelligence czar, talking about the future of war.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID SACKS, WHITE HOUSE CZAR FOR AI AND CRYPTOCURRENCY: There's no question that --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.

SACKS: -- the armies of the future are going to be drones and robots and they're going to be AI powered. I would define winning as the whole world consolidates around the American tech stock.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN HOST: Let's discuss this with Admiral James Stavridis. He's a CNN senior military analyst and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander. He's also a partner at the Carlyle Group, a global investment firm.

Admiral, thank you so much for being with us to talk about this. Let's start with that sound bite you just heard. Is Sacks right that the future of war is essentially robots with guns?

ADM. JAMES STAVRIDIS (RET.), CNN SENIOR MILITARY ANALYST: To some degree it is. And I'd say to viewers, look at the war in Ukraine right now. In a sense, it's kind of two wars, right?

It's this uber high tech artificial intelligence playing a big part, for example, in the amazing strikes by the Ukrainians, drones using AI to do final targeting. But it's also still a war that would look familiar to someone from World War I, like the Battle of Verdun, its trenches and tanks and artillery. So I think the dial of warfare, if you will, is turning toward those high tech systems. Artificial intelligence will be a big part of that. But we've got a ways to go before it completely becomes robots with guns.

DEAN: Yes, and so you mentioned Ukraine, which is such a good example of how this is being used. Where else are we seeing AI integrated on the battlefield? What are other examples that are happening in real time? And where do you think we are headed in the short term?

STAVRIDIS: We say in the military that in the end, it is the professionals who are looking at logistics. Logistics wins wars. Logistics means getting your bullets to the right place on time. It means maintenance and repair of your equipment.

All of those kind of functions. They're not sexy. They're not bombs dropping or missiles flying through windows. But you win or lose wars so often on the logistics, the maintenance, the transportation.

We're already seeing artificial intelligence used to make sure that our tanks are running on time, that we're doing the preventative maintenance in our aircraft.

Our cyber forces are using artificial intelligence to groom those systems. So not sexy. That's the back office stuff, but it's critically important.

The other half is the front end. And again, that's kind of what we saw the Ukrainians do so effectively. They were certainly using a web of artificial intelligence to control those drones, to net them together, to connect them with space, and then ultimately to drive them over the strategic airfields and using artificial intelligence for that final targeting, which took out, by some reports, 40 strategic bombers of the Russian Air Force.

There's two pretty good examples.

FREEMAN: Admiral, we're talking about the present at the moment, but with an eye towards the future, we understand West Point right now is instructing its cadets on AI.

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How far away is this in the future to have, you know, a moment where maybe the last U.S. service member would actually be out of harm's way?

STAVRIDIS: I think we're closer and closer. But again, back to that war in Ukraine or war in the Middle East or any conflict zone, the idea that AI will simply free us from the burden of casualties, of death, of combat, I think that's a decade or more away.

There's one other element of this I'd inject into the conversation, which is can AI help commanders, even sergeants in the field by kind of perching in your ear and looking at the tactical situation in front of you and saying, go left, because that AI has surveilled all similar situations that ever occurred in the history of warfare and knows you're far better off staying in the shade of the building on the left-hand side than you would be moving to the right.

In other words, the AI helping with those tactical decisions, that's coming sooner rather than later as well.

Again, just as each of your segments this week, and I've been watching them, they're excellent, is illuminating this war tragically will continue to be part of this revolution in artificial intelligence.

FREEMAN: Yes, fascinating, some scary, amazing, I mean, truly. Admiral James Stavridis, thank you so much for your insight. And we'll be right back.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DEAN: This is breaking news into CNN. Kilmar Abrego Garcia the Salvadoran father mistakenly deported in March will be brought back to the U.S. where we're told he will face criminal charges.

I want to go first to Evan Perez. Evan this is breaking just now we have limited details but what can you tell us?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN: Yes that's right we we only know the basics which is that Kilmar Abrego Garcia is on his way back to the United States. We anticipate that he is going to be facing these federal charges, criminal charges. This has been an ongoing investigation out of the Middle District of Tennessee over the last few weeks.

We know that video emerged that we've shown on our air. A video emerged of a traffic stop there and the accusation or the allegation that was being investigated by the Justice Department there was whether that was a human trafficking operation that he was a part of.

Now Abrego Garcia's family has denied that. They say obviously there's when when immigrants and laborers need to go from place to place for jobs that they often hitch a ride with others and so they they have denied that this was a human trafficking situation. But it has been something that the the prosecutors in the Middle District of Tennessee have been pursuing for the last few weeks.

Now he's been the subject as you know of a battle, legal battle between the Trump administration and his family because he was mistakenly sent to El Salvador despite an order from a judge saying that he should not be sent there. And so they've been resisting efforts to bring him back despite an order from a judge to facilitate his return.

Now bringing him back because he's facing charges is one way for the Trump administration certainly to save face because they've repeatedly said, Jessica, that they had no intention to bring him back to this country.

He is a Salvadoran citizen. He's being held in that notorious prison, CECOT, in El Salvador and so that's where he was going to stay they said. But now obviously things have changed. If they are going to bring charges against him then he will have to answer to those when he gets back here to the United States.

I should note, in just a few more minutes, we expect to have a press conference here at the Justice Department. They haven't told us exactly what the subject is but it is pretty clear given the timing that this was obviously an issue that we will be discussing at that press conference -- Jessica.

DEAN: We're going to stand by for that Evan and please stay with us because we'll want to come back.

FREEMAN: Definitely let's bring into the conversation now Priscilla Alvarez. You've been following this case very very closely and the ongoing battle when it comes to the Trump administration and their actions on immigration. As Evan noted I mean the Trump administration said he was never coming back or they were really not going to, again, facilitate as the court had hoped.

What's your initial reaction to this news that he's on his way potentially back to the United States?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes the administration had dug their heels in that he wasn't going to be returned to the United States and if he were to ever be returned that they would deport him to another country. In fact this was an issue that was raised in the Oval Office with President Trump as well as Salvadoran President Bukele who at the time similarly said, he had no intention of bringing him back to the United States. And in one remarkable moment saying that doing so was essentially smuggling him back to the United States.

Clearly, however, some agreement has been reached. I've been told by sources over the course of this case that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had been the one who had been having these discussions with the Salvadoran president. So we're trying to learn more as to what eventually led to this breakthrough where they are returning him to now face charges.

But to remind viewers as to how this case really came together. There were those three flights in mid-March of migrants sent to El Salvador.

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Two of those flights had Venezuelan migrants and one of them had Salvadoran nationals who the administration said were MS-13 members. However this case was a unique one because the administration had conceded for the first time at that time that he was sent to El Salvador as quote, an administrative error.

Essentially he landed on that flight manifest when he shouldn't have been on it and the family had said he was not an MS-13 member and up until this point there hasn't been any filings in federal court to say or to prove rather that he is part of MS-13.

So this really led to this very fraught legal battle, a back and forth between the federal judge and the administration. The federal judge oftentimes over the course of multiple hearings in recent weeks expressing frustration at the stonewalling of the Justice Department and the lack of information as to his whereabouts, his well-being, all the rest.

Now Senator Van Hollen, this was another big moment in this case, had gone to El Salvador to meet with him. It was the first image that we had seen of Kilmar Abrego Garcia in El Salvador and it was at that time we learned that he was actually transferred out of CECOT to yet another detention center in El Salvador.

But again, as you can see as I'm telling this, the idea the entire time, the message from the administration here in the United States but also from El Salvador was that he wasn't going anywhere. He was going to stay there and he was going to stay in detention there.

So this this development that he is returning to the United States is an extraordinary one. It's also one that leaves open a lot of questions.

What happens now that he faces charges in Tennessee, which the administration had, as Evan just pointed out there, talked about this run-in with law enforcement in Tennessee as he was returning from Texas to Maryland. Then there's also questions as to whether he could be deported somewhere else. Recall an immigration judge had said that he had quote, withholding of removal, which is to say he could be deported anywhere else. He just couldn't be deported to El Salvador, which is really what was at the crux of this case before this judge in Maryland.

So certainly there are still a lot of unanswered questions here as to what happens once he is back into in the United States. But I have been covering this case from the beginning, talking to his family, talking to his attorneys and they are similarly working through this.

But there is one would imagine some relief here for the family who thought that up until this point they were not going to see him anytime soon.

So again, lots of unanswered questions but a remarkable development given the fact that this administration has repeatedly said they had no intention of returning him to the United States.

DEAN: OK Priscilla, I want you to stay with us. Let's bring in former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman. Harry, we are just getting in our hands right now this indictment that's coming down from the Middle District of Tennessee and we are reading it as fast as we possibly can.

But I think the broad strokes here, if I may just read through here, is that the United States is alleging that Abrego Garcia was using cellular telephones and social media applications to facilitate the unlawful transportation of undocumented aliens without authorization to and from the U.S., that they collected financial payments for -- that Abrego Garcia collected financial payments for this.

HARRY LITMAN, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: Over the course of many years.

DEAN: Over the course of many years and then alleges that he was linked indeed to MS-13. So this is giving us a window into, again as we go through this, what exactly the court -- that Abrego Garcia is going to be charged with when he gets back to the United States.

LITMAN: Yes, let me try to clarify the charges. So that initial stuff is just to have jurisdiction. What has happened here, there was this stop. We knew about the stop. There were eight people in the car with them. The Tennessee troopers just let him go away with a warning for an unexpired license.

But they have located a cooperating witness down in Florida who says, I ran a taxi service for many years. That's why this is a conspiracy. One of the two counts is there was this long-standing conspiracy. This guy was running the taxi service over ten years and on a few occasions he hires Abrego Garcia, that's the allegation, to drive people from Texas up somewhere into the interior.

So that is the gist of the charges, that he joined this ongoing conspiracy. And then there's another count for a time he actually did it.

Now recall that he had said at the time that this was just driving people to and from construction sites. And the U.S. has worked this case. The indictment already has been returned by grand jury. And we will hear Bondi saying in a couple minutes, it's now being unsealed.

But this is the administration's way of sort of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat because it was getting more and more pressure. This was really the number one focus of the person who was down at CECOT.

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Now they're bringing him back not to deport him again, but to charge him with a crime that could put him in federal prison for a couple years.

FREEMAN: All right. We're getting reactions from a number of different places. I want to go now to Kristen Holmes, who's at the White House with us.

Kristen, this again, big news. Like Priscilla just said, the administration certainly said that this was unlikely to ever happen. The Salvadoran president as well said that this would have been preposterous not too long ago from the Oval Office.

What can you tell us from the White House?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, not just that it was unlikely. We heard a number of administration officials saying he was never going to come back to the United States. Now, despite the fact that the administration admitted that there was an error with the deportation to El Salvador, they have really changed the narrative around Garcia, essentially trying to say that he was a bad person, that he was a bad guy, that this was all part of the mass immigration efforts of Donald Trump's.

And we should note behind the scenes, there has been a lot of conversation about how exactly they were going to handle this. We know that they parsed every word of that Supreme Court ruling, saying that they should help facilitate. And that was what they really focused on, not bring him back, but help facilitate bringing him back to the United States.

And behind the scenes, there were conversations about how exactly this was going to look because you have to remember two things about Donald Trump and his current agenda. The issues he has a lot of cases in front of the Supreme Court. They have said -- the administration has said time and time again that they respect the Supreme Court. They don't respect the lower courts, but they respect the Supreme Court.

So how were they going to kind of round this circle and try and get this to happen? Now we see that the bringing him back and that he is going to be charged with crimes, these allegations, of course, as you just heard Mr. Litman -- Harry talking about there to unlawfully transport illegal immigrants.

But the other part of this to keep in mind is that they are -- and I want to agree with Harry here -- going to try and make this a win that they have brought him back. But now they're going to say that everything that they were saying about him for the past several months when they were trying to justify the fact that he had been deported was correct. And that is how they're going to do this by leaning into these charges.

DEAN: OK, Kristen, stand by. I've got I've got Priscilla Alvarez here next to me, and we want to go to Glenn Ivey, who's on Capitol Hill. But Priscilla, you're confirming this is just quickly before we go to Glenn Ivey.

This is the first time they're directly linking Kilmar Abrego Garcia to MS-13.

ALVAREZ: In court documents, they've said so publicly. We had seen in filings before immigration judges some references to local police and their brushes with him and how they had, uh, suggested that he was part of MS-13. But this so explicitly saying it's saying --

DEAN: And that's the linchpin because I think a lot of people -- let's go to Congressman Glenn Ivey. Congressman, thank you so much for being here with us. I want to bring you into this conversation because we are getting a look at this indictment, which alleges criminal activity.

And as we were just saying with our correspondent here directly ties in legal documents for the first time, Abrego Garcia to MS-13 and alleges these criminal acts as well. I just want to see what your reaction is to that.

REP. GLENN IVEY (D-MA): Well, I haven't had a chance to see the indictment yet. You know, I look forward to having a chance to see it and review it. More importantly, I think it's going to be a chance, I hope for Kilmar to actually have a chance to have a conversation with lawyers who are representing him and give them a chance to look at it as well so they can they can address these charges directly.

But I think it's important to remember that just, you know, up until yesterday, apparently the Trump administration was saying they couldn't bring him back. He was outside of their control in their jurisdiction.

It's clear they could bring him back, and hopefully they'll bring back the other 250 plus Venezuelans and others who were in this odd status of deportation, even though they haven't done anything or been convicted of any criminal activity.

FREEMAN: Congressman Ivey, you, of course, are Abrego Garcia's representative in Congress. You went down there to El Salvador not too long ago. I just want to ask you, did you have any sense that this latest development was coming that he actually would be brought back here to face these federal charges?

IVEY: I didn't know that there were going to be federal charges, although there was speculation about a variety of things that they might try and do to frankly, try and get this off their plate. They were getting a lot of heat about him being held in El Salvador, even though the Trump administration admitted that he'd been sent there incorrectly, illegally. And this is one way to do that.

Another possibility, too, is they maybe they were just tired of getting the Elon and Donald fight and wanted to get something to try and bump that off the radar screen. But we'll just have to see how that goes.

But, you know, at least he's going to have a chance to talk to his lawyers now and hopefully have a chance to start appearing in front of judges in here in the United States and get some semblance of due process.

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DEAN: And Congressman, we should note you, you represent that district. You did go down to El Salvador late last month to try and see him in prison. I know you were not able to actually do that. But are you confident that he didn't -- that all of this being alleged here in this document, that this is the right situation to bring him back and charge him with this?

Is this the right move? And are you confident that he's innocent of all of this?

IVEY: Well, I don't know what one way or the other. I'm certainly not confident that the Trump administration is not using the Department of Justice to carry out its political ends here. I mean, you know, we've seen what they've done in other scenarios, for example, with respect to the Eric Adams matter.

And there are cases in the Eastern District of New York where there are questions that have been raised about them deporting individuals who are facing charges back to El Salvador potentially to keep them from testifying in a way that would embarrass President Bukele down in El Salvador.

But I think we just have to wait and see what's going on with it. But no, I'm not comfortable that the Trump administration is handling this in an above board way.

FREEMAN: Congressman, I know all of this has been obviously late breaking this afternoon on a Friday. But have you had any chance in the past, say, 30 minutes or so to be in contact with his attorney or perhaps his family here in the States?

IVEY: Well, his family attorney, Mr. Newman, was actually in my office at the time this broke. We were just doing a briefing as this came out. So we've had some conversations.

He's been on the phone talking with other lawyers who represent Kilmar directly and other members of the family. But, I mean, everybody's still sorting it out, especially since we haven't seen any charging documents yet. So it's a little early for us to be, you know, for them at least to be trying to form any kind of opinions about how this might proceed.

But I do think that at least it's clear now that the Trump administration can bring these people back. And I really think that they need to get moving on that, too.

The courts are pushing them to do it. The Supreme Court told them to do something with respect to Kilmar weeks ago. You know, it's unfortunate they think they've got to, you know, charge him with criminal charges before they do it. But you know, again, at least it's a step in the right direction from the standpoint of him at least having a chance to be seen by his attorneys and get into a United States court.

DEAN: And Congressman, quickly before we let you go, is there any sense at this point from that family attorney when his family will be able to speak with him? Or if?

IVEY: No. No. We don't have anything about like travel arrangements or what's going to happen with that.

As far as I know, we're not even aware of where he might be brought to here in the United States. You know, if he's been charged, and I think it's Tennessee, one would think he would be taken there so he could have his initial appearance before that in that federal courthouse. But I don't really know for sure what they're going to do.

FREEMAN: OK, thank you so much to Congressman Ivey for joining us on this breaking news about his constituent.

Now we want to bring in former ICE Acting Director John Sandweg to this conversation. Just can I get your top line perspective here? I think this is a surprise for many of us who, as we've been discussing, listen, the Trump administration was adamant this wasn't going to happen, and yet here we are.

JOHN SANDWEG, PARTNER, NIXON PEABODY: Yes, I think they found a way, as some of the earlier commentators were saying, to try to make a political victory here by charging him. But I'll tell you, the immigration enforcement effort here isn't done either. Remember, Abrego Garcia was given withholding of removal. That is not a permanent status.

The administration could have gone back in and said there's changed circumstances that now make him ineligible. And I think what we're going to see is on the back end of this criminal prosecution, right now they prosecute him for these immigration-related offenses.

If they get a conviction, they will go back to the immigration court and argue that now there are those changed circumstances, that Abrego Garcia has now been convicted of a particularly serious crime that renders him ineligible for that protection, that withholding of removal that kept him from El Salvador. And if they're successful there, he could find himself back deported, this time lawfully, to El Salvador.

DEAN: Yes, and, John, is the question here, why not do this first and then, if he is indeed convicted, then deport him?

SANDWEG: Yes, absolutely. I mean, the problem here was he had a court order. No matter what they say, DOJ admitted this in the first hearing, a mistake was made here.

He had a court order that specifically said he could not be deported to El Salvador. That doesn't mean, again, it was permanent. ICE could have gone back to the immigration judge and said, we have new evidence of MS-13 membership.

We have new, you know, there's changed circumstances here. Evidence of this crime in Tennessee. They didn't do that. Instead, they deported him in violation of a court order. That was black and white.

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But now, again, that they're bringing him back, there are going to be immigration consequences on the back end of this prosecution. And I wouldn't be surprised if the administration plans to try to, again, send him to El Salvador once this criminal case is over.

DEAN: All right, John, thank you so much. Just a lot of breaking news to follow.

FREEMAN: A lot of breaking news and more to come momentarily on CNN, sure.

DEAN: OK. Thank you to all our guests.

Stay with CNN. We're going to continue our coverage of Kilmar Abrego Garcia being returned to the United States. There is more to come. Our breaking news coverage continues with "THE ARENA" with Kasie Hunt. That's next.

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