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First Look Inside U.S. Deportation Flight to Cuba; Historic California Gold Mining Town Overrun by Fast-Moving Wildfire; Using Smartphone in Bathroom Could Cause Hemorrhoids. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired September 03, 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]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: It looks like President Trump's deployment of the National Guard here in Washington, D.C. could last a bit longer. A source says the troops are expected to have their military orders extended through December to ensure that benefits for them and their families are available.

Typically, Guard members do not qualify for military benefits, like a housing allowance or healthcare, unless they're on active orders for more than 30 days. The expected extension has not been finalized yet, and it's still unclear how long the mission in D.C. will last.

The president deployed the Guard as part of his crackdown on crime in the city. Critics have called the move unnecessary, as Guard members have been seen laying mulch and picking up trash, among other activities -- Boris.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: For generations, Cuban families have entered the United States as political refugees, fleeing a communist dictatorship. But now, under President Trump's immigration crackdown, many have lost the status that allowed him to come to the United States and are being forced to go back to the island in shackles.

CNN was the first international TV network allowed to see how deportees are being processed in Cuba. CNN's Patrick Oppmann has this exclusive report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The ICE deportation flight lands with 161 Cuban deportees, the largest number ever aboard a single plane, officials here tell me all returned to their homeland in shackles.

For decades, Cubans arriving in the U.S. were considered refugees fleeing communism and received preferential immigration status. But under President Trump's second term, their political fortunes have shifted radically. Potentially, tens of thousands now face the threat of deportation.

This is the first time the Cuban government has allowed international media to film the arrival of a U.S. flight transporting their deported citizens. OPPMANN: This enormous plane that has just landed behind me is full of

Cuban deportees. For many of them, it'll be the first time they touch Cuban soil in years. And despite the fact that U.S.-Cuban relations are at their worst point in decades, these deportation flights have continued.

OPPMANN (voice-over): The deportees are unshackled and disembark the plane, a few at a time, to begin reprocessing. This man complains to us that he had tied handcuffs on for hours and lost feeling in his arms and legs.

Immediately, we notice a woman coming off the plane who is visibly distraught. We are only able to ask the woman, Yudierquis Reyes, a few questions before her reprocessing begins, but the story she tells us is chilling.

[15:35:00]

YUDIERQUIS REYES, DEPORTED TO CUBA WITHOUT CHILD (through translator): They left behind my two-year-old daughter. I lost her, she tells me, referring to ICE officials. They told me the girl was American and could not leave the country.

OPPMANN (voice-over): According to Reyes, she was arrested in June during a routine check-in with ICE in Nebraska, where she was living with her U.S.-born daughter. Reyes says she then spent more than three months in detention centers. She was being deported. She said ICE officials told her for having pleaded no contest to a second-degree assault charge in 2023, for which Reyes was placed on probation and served no jail time.

In a statement to CNN, the Department of Homeland Security called Reyes a, quote, criminal illegal alien and child abuser, although court records don't show any such conviction. Reyes faced a child abuse, no-injury charge, as her infant daughter was in the house during the 2023 assault incident. But a search of Nebraska court records shows that prosecutors dropped the child abuse charge against Reyes as part of her plea deal.

The DHS statement goes on to say, Reyes' child, who she had custody of, remained with her father, a, quote, U.S. citizen, at his request.

CNN spoke with the girl's father, who said he was a U.S. resident, not a U.S. citizen, and had crossed illegally into the U.S. with Reyes from Mexico, and that he did not want the girl to travel to Cuba as, quote, life would be too hard for her there.

These haphazard, excruciating family separations are likely to become more common if the Trump administration is able to follow through on deporting tens of thousands of Cubans who came to the U.S. on the parole program during the Biden administration.

It remains to be seen if Cuba is willing or able to accept all of those deportees, as the island reels from worsening shortages of electricity, water, and food and increased U.S. economic sanctions. Cuban immigration officials say deportees are treated humanely and, in most cases, processed and released within hours.

LT. COL. LOURDES GIL ROBAINA, CUBAN IMMIGRATION OFFICIAL (through translator): Their Cubans -- this official tells us -- they go home where their family is. They don't have a problem with immigration to be reinserted into society.

OPPMANN (voice-over): Many of these deportees, though, say they sold everything they owned to finance their journey to the U.S., and little remains for them in Cuba. Others, like Yudierquis Reyes, can't bear to be separated from the family they left behind.

REYES (through translator): If I don't get her back, I'm going, she says. I hope Cuba doesn't ask for me back. No country. They will have to let me go. Whatever amount of time I have to be locked up, I will be.

OPPMANN (voice-over): For some, there's simply nothing more that they can lose. And even as the Trump administration ramps up deportations from the U.S., Many of these Cuban deportees say they will find a way to return.

Patrick Oppmann, CNN Havana.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: Our thanks to Patrick Oppmann for that report.

Coming up, a fast-moving wildfire is tearing through thousands of acres in northern California, including a historic gold rush town from the 1850s. A report next.

[15:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: In Northern California, firefighters are battling a fast moving wildfire that has already scorched thousands of acres. As of this morning, it was 0 percent contained. This fire tore through the historic gold rush town of Chinese camp, destroying buildings and homes. The town and some nearby areas were evacuated Tuesday evening.

Meteorologist Derek Van Dam is with us now. So Derek, what do we know about the current conditions and what started this fire?

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, Brianna, we know that lightning triggered the wildfire, but it was the dry conditions on the ground. And of course, the excessive heat we've experienced over the past several days that helped fuel the flames. At one point yesterday afternoon, this wildfire was expanding in size by the rate of 10 football fields per minute. And unfortunately, it burned through several structures in the town of Chinese Village.

This is just incredible to see the firefighters who incident command has actually called in more aerial aircraft, more on the ground crews, more bulldozers, more whatever they can get their hands on to extinguish the flames. Now, just in 24 hours, we've had nearly 5,000 lightning strikes that

were registered across the entire state of California. But as we hone in on the Chinese camp region, you can see the line of thunderstorms that moved through yesterday, sparking that wildfire that just basically blew up in size and still is at 0 percent containment.

So going forward, we still have our evacuation orders. You can see them here with the shading of purple. This is the burned area from the 6-5 fire. You can see that it encompasses much of Chinese camp, but with the wildfires that are burning out of control over the Western U.S., it just puts it into context how dry it is, the heat that has been pumped into this region the past several days, adding fuel. and drying out the vegetation on the ground and unfortunately leading to scenes like this -- Brianna.

KEILAR: All right, Derek, thank you so much for showing us what's happening there -- Boris.

[15:45:00]

SANCHEZ: We're following some breaking news into CNN. At least 15 people are dead after a funicular railway derailed in Lisbon, Portugal. According to CNN Portugal, the homicide brigade of the Judiciary Police has been called to investigate the cause of the accident. The Gloria funicular can carry up to 42 people and is a landmark in Lisbon that first opened in 1885, very popular with tourists.

Portugal's president, in a statement, offered his condolences to the victims' families. We're going to keep a close eye on this story and bring you the latest as we get it.

We'll be back after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: You got to go, you got to go, but maybe next time, don't bring your phone.

[15:50:00]

SANCHEZ: There's a new study that shows that people who bring their phone into the bathroom could be at higher risk of hemorrhoids. Joining us now is Dr. Trisha Pasricha. She's a gastroenterologist and a senior author of this new study. Doctor, thanks so much for being with us. Help us make this connection. How are these two things linked?

DR. TRISHA PASRICHA, DIRECTOR, CUT-BRAIN RESEARCH INSTITUTE AT BIDMC IN BOSTON: My pleasure, and thanks for having me here. So hemorrhoids are these entities that we've probably heard about. We probably also know that we don't want to have them, and they're basically these engorged veins in the bottom part of our colon called the rectum.

Now what happens and how we develop hemorrhoids is that the connective tissue surrounding them can become weakened over time and that can cause those veins to bulge and then we call them hemorrhoids.

And the idea behind this study, which my group did, is that when you sit on the toilet bowl for longer periods of time, we hypothesize that without any pelvic floor support, because this is different from sitting on a chair, that connective tissue starts to weaken, those veins start to bulge, and you're actually putting yourself at increased risk of hemorrhoids the longer you sit on the toilet. Your smartphone is not your friend in that regard.

KEILAR: OK, so take us through some -- and I told my team I was going to say this -- some do do's and some don'ts here, right? OK, so the amount of time that someone should be on -- people -- I think if you say to them, hey, you have just a few minutes or whatever, like what is the time limit that they should be aiming for and talk about posture while on the loo because that is actually something in this study.

PASRICHA: Right and first let me just say I appreciate a good poop joke, so thank you for doing that. You know one thing that I -- one thing that I tell people we were telling people well before this study came out was try not to spend more than five minutes on on the toilet. We didn't actually have great data backing that up. This study really quantifies what the risk is and and you know how big that risk is -- 46 percent increased risk of having hemorrhoids. So I tell people look, we still want you to spend less five minutes on the toilet in one go.

Because smartphone users, they are more than five times as likely to spend more than five minutes on the toilet when they go for people who don't bring their smartphone in. So that five-minute rule is still important. My advice first and foremost is don't bring your smartphone in. If you can leave it outside, do it, right?

We say that don't bring your smartphone to the bedroom, try not to keep it at your bedside, don't bring it to the dining table, it interferes with your social connectedness. Well, the bathroom is no different. If you're someone who says, look, I have to read something, and that's also not so uncommon. A lot of people actually need to read to have a little bit of a mild, pleasant distraction to have a good bowel movement, that's fine, but maybe go a little old school, like bring in a magazine, an old-fashioned printed newspaper, something that's not going to kind of deliberately try to distract you and keep auto-feeding you new, engaging reels that you're not really making a choice to continue, they're just kind of -- the app is doing that for you.

SANCHEZ: Yes, the algorithms kind of trap you. Quickly, doctor, is there any, like, because you mentioned like a weak pelvic floor contributes to this. Is there anything you can do to strengthen your pelvic floor to try to prevent something like this from happening? Or is the advice just like, don't stay on the toilet for more than 5 minutes?

PASRICHA: Try not to stay on the toilet for as long, for more than 5 minutes. Try not to strain and do something. I tell everyone to do this. We will all benefit from using something, a stool, stack of books, high heels to raise your knees above your waist because that actually opens up the angle of your colon to allow you to have a more easy bowel movement. So posture does make a big difference. And if you do that, you're going to find that you're going to be able to much more easily have a bowel movement than if you're just sitting at that usual 90 degree kind of chair angle of a standard toilet bowl.

KEILAR: You're so good. You answered our last question, which was do squatty potties help? And so it sounds like the answer is yes.

PASRICHA: They do. And you know, I don't necessarily endorse. You don't have to buy anything branded. You can just use what you have lying around. But the most physiologic way to have movement was squatting. And you know, I think we've really harmed ourselves a little bit as a society by moving more towards a chair like position.

KEILAR: All right.

SANCHEZ: Wow!

KEILAR: So helpful.

SANCHEZ: It is.

KEILAR: I know this can be a sensitive subject, but this is important. People need to know this and Dr. Trisha Pasricha, we really appreciate you taking us through this. Thank you.

PASRICHA: My pleasure.

KEILAR: Still to come, maybe you have wondered, what does the fox say? Well, now we have an answer to a different riddle. What sound does a Bigfoot make?

[15:55:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: It's the turn up for Bigfoot believers. It's a gathering in a convenience store parking lot in Maine. Where else, right? To find out who is best at calling the elusive, big and hairy guy that said to wander around the woods. The Maine Bigfoot Foundation hosted the weekend event. It drew the young and old. It drew believers. It drew skeptics.

SANCHEZ: So you might be asking yourself, what is Bigfoot actually sound like? Apparently, there's a lot of variety.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(DIFFERENT CONTESTANTS SASQUATCH CALLING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Sounds like these folks took their smartphone into the bathroom. Bad idea.

[16:00:00]

That 7 year old boy you just saw there won $100 top prize and Bigfoot bragging rights. The foundation also has big plans for its first Bigfoot festival coming in mid-October. So if you're free, sounds like a party.

KEILAR: OK, I know that was funny, but. They all sounded really good.

SANCHEZ: They put some work into it.

KEILAR: Like they put a lot of thought into it.

SANCHEZ: Yes, yes. There was one guy that had a little Chewbacca in there, which for some reason I feel like is appropriate for Bigfoot.

KEILAR: Totally agree.

SANCHEZ: What was that picture of Bigfoot? That was a bit too sensual.

KEILAR: "THE ARENA" with Kasie Hunt starts right now.

END