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Trump Ramps Up Immigration Crackdown After D.C. Shooting; Suspect Facing Murder Charge After Guard Member Dies; Trump: Biden Autopen Docs Are "Terminated," No Longer in Effect; Sources: U.S. Military Carried Out Second Strike Killing Survivors on a Suspected Drug Boat That Had Already Been Attacked; Eight More Arrests In Hong Kong Fire As Death Toll Reaches 128; At Least 128 Killed, 200 Missing in Hong Kong Apartment Fire. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired November 28, 2025 - 15:00   ET

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

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN HOST: The 1913 "Winter Egg" showcases snowflakes engraved into a clear quartz exterior and is adorned with around 4,500 tiny diamonds, give or take. It also features a bejeweled basket of flowers inside. Only 50 of the eggs were made for two Russian czars between 1885 and 1916. Most are in museums, institutions or just lost. Only a handful are still in private hands. And this may be one of the last times one of the legendary Faberge eggs goes up for auction.

All right, new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

President Trump escalating his immigration crackdown. He is pledging to stop migration from all third world countries, though he didn't elaborate which countries. And immigration officials will review approved asylum cases and some green card recipients.

Plus, President Trump escalating his threats against Venezuela, saying land strikes on alleged drug traffickers will begin very soon.

And later, a potent storm expected to dump snow and rain over more than a hundred -- more than a thousand miles, excuse me, of the United States. That's probably going to complicate some holiday travel this weekend. We'll bring you the details. We are following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

Happening now, federal prosecutors are threatening new charges against the man suspected of shooting two National Guard members. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro announcing Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal will soon face a murder charge after 20-year-old Sarah Beckstrom died from her injuries yesterday. The other Guard member, 24-year-old Andrew Wolfe, was critically injured and remains in the hospital.

Now, in response to the shooting, the Trump administration is promising to escalate its nationwide immigration crackdown. And he's vowing to permanently pause migration from all third world countries. CNN's Brian Todd is in Washington, where the shooting happened at the scene and was there not long after the shooting actually happened on Wednesday.

You know, this president got approval for some of this asylum back in April -- the suspect, excuse me. What more are investigators learning about his potential motive here?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Omar, they're being kind of cagey about the motive. We have been pressing them on that since Wednesday. And they've been a little bit hesitant to tell us what they think the motive is, mainly because they said he has not been cooperating with investigators.

There's also some question as to what kind of condition, physical condition, he is in at a local hospital and whether he is even able to respond to questions at this point. That's a little unclear. So, establishing a clear motive for this, they keep telling us it's really too early in the investigation for them to tell us this. But we hope to learn more about that, of course, in the coming days.

We do know, though, that they are going to pursue stronger charges against the suspect now. His name is Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29 years old, an Afghan national. Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, told Fox News just a short time ago he's now going to face first-degree murder charges. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEANINE PIRRO, U.S. ATTORNEY FOR DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: There are certainly many more charges to come, but we are upgrading the initial charges of assault to murder in the first degree. And we are hoping that the more information we can get and the more investigation that is going on 24/7 now around the clock in Washington, the more we will find out about what actually happened in terms of this individual even being in this country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TODD: Now, Lakanwal had faced -- previously faced, three counts of assault with intent to kill while armed and one count of possession with a firearm with the intent to commit violence. Some of those charges could still hold up in addition to the first-degree murder charge that they are planning to bring toward him.

We can also give you a little bit of new information that we're learning about the suspect himself. According to a neighbor who spoke to CNN, he lived in an apartment complex in Bellingham, Washington, with his wife, five children, and two nephews. The neighbor, who did not want to be identified by name, said he was a, quote, "simple and nice guy" who often attended the mosque there, but had not attended the mosque in the last couple of weeks.

We also know Amazon has confirmed that someone with the same name did work for them as an independent contractor for about a month over the summer, working for the Amazon Flex delivery service.

And very quickly, Omar, before I toss back to you, this has been a recurring scene all day. People coming. You see this gentleman here. People have been coming, placing flowers, notes, wreaths, flags on this makeshift memorial. This has been growing exponentially since yesterday. And we even saw two uniformed Secret Service police officers dropping flowers off and a note. [15:05:03]

So, a lot of people getting very, very emotional about the death of Sarah Beckstrom, the 20-year-old National Guard member who passed away last night. Omar.

JIMENEZ: And another Guard member continuing to fight for his life. Brian Todd, thank you so much.

All right, back to our breaking news. This new Truth Social post from President Trump saying he is terminating any documents signed by former President Joe Biden with an autopen.

Now, in the post, President Trump says that the autopen is not allowed to be used unless it's approved by the President. And he goes on to write the following, quote, "Joe Biden was not involved in the autopen process. And if he says he was, he will be brought up on charges of perjury."

I want to bring in former federal prosecutor Berit Berger -- Berger.

You know, just to start there, President Biden has defended his use of the autopen and said that he was the one making the calls when it was used. But I guess from a legal perspective, can the President do this?

BERIT BERGER, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: So, there's good precedent for former President Biden to have used the autopen. This is -- he was not the first president to have done so. It's been used by presidents going back for decades. And just to be clear about what kind of documents we're talking about. So, one of the things we knew President Biden had used the autopen for were a host of pardons. There was many that were granted within the last few days of his administration and reporting that the autopen was used for some of them.

There's no requirement in the Constitution that says anything about either a pardon or any other particular documents to have physically be signed by the President. They -- in fact, there's been language that the Office of Legal Counsel has put forth saying the -- saying is that there'd be some, you know, way of knowing that the President approved this, but it's absolutely appropriate for a president to have directed a subordinate to sign for him or to use a document.

So, I think President Biden probably was on good ground simply because it's been done so long before. But even if not, I'm not exactly sure what the legal mechanism here is for undoing all of these documents that he potentially signed with an autopen.

JIMENEZ: And it would nearly be difficult to know, I guess, at this point, what exact documents he's talking about. But just to go along with the post that he's put out to this point, he claims that not only did -- that President Biden did not give approval, but threatened to charge Biden with perjury if he claims otherwise.

I mean, I know you say President Biden is on pretty stable legal ground as far as precedent goes for the use of an autopen, but could President Trump or -- or the DOJ, you know, create a case, a perjury case and on allegations that -- that President Biden is lying?

BERGER: Again, this would also seem very unlikely. Again, let's just remember this very small Supreme Court decision that granted President Trump wide immunity for acts that were done in his official capacity. Potentially, President Biden would be able to rely on that same language in saying, you know, anything that he did in his official capacity. And one could certainly argue that signing pardons or other documents, whether he used an autopen or not, was actually in his official capacity. But that same immunity would apply to him as well.

I'm not exactly sure what perjury President Trump would be referring to, but at least the use of the autopen, given the fact that it has been used by so many presidents in the past, it's been done so widely, it would be very hard for me to imagine a situation where this would form the basis of any kind of potential criminal liability.

JIMENEZ: And to be clear for our viewers, even though President Trump has put this out, he was not specific into exact orders or exact documents that he was talking about. And as we've been talking about, the autopen has been used across multiple administrations, not just President Biden. Berit Berger, got to leave the conversation there, but thank you for the insight. Valuable to help parse through some of this.

All right, still to come, President Trump sending a new warning to Venezuela. Why he says the U.S. is preparing to take new action against alleged drug trafficking networks inside the country.

Plus, a deadly fire is finally under control after it tore through several high-rise buildings in Hong Kong. Now, a number of people have been arrested. We'll bring you the details.

And later, a winter storm will dump snow and heavy rain across much of the country. It could create some headaches for millions of people traveling home from the holiday, and I'm sure that includes you. That and much more coming up on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

[15:09:52]

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[15:14:15]

JIMENEZ: We're learning new details about one of those deadly strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean. Sources tell CNN the U.S. military carried out a follow-up strike to this September 2nd attack after having reason to believe there were survivors in the water. Now, the sources say that prior to the strike, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had ordered the military to ensure everyone on board was killed.

It's not clear if Hegseth knew there were survivors prior to the second attack. People briefed on the, quote, "double-tap strike" say they're concerned that it could violate the law of armed conflict, which prohibits killing an enemy combatant who is taken out of the fight due to injury or surrender. Now, since September, the U.S. military has carried out at least 21

known strikes on suspected drug trafficking boats, killing at least 83 people.

[15:15:03]

And these developments are happening, as President Trump says the U.S. military will soon expand its campaign to Venezuelan soil.

I'm joined now by retired Navy Admiral James Stavridis, a CNN Senior Military Analyst. He's also a former NATO Supreme Allied Commander and now Vice Chairman of Carlyle, an international investment firm. Also, by the way, got to get the whole resume here, also served as a commander of the U.S. Southern Command.

Thank you for being here.

I guess, I just want to start with what concerns you about the -- this double tap boat strike here?

JAMES STAVRIDIS, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, first, as a number of international law experts have said, this raises real questions of, is this permissible under the laws of war? Generally speaking, when you have knocked an opponent down, you have sunk their ship, for example, and they're floating around in the water, they obviously pose no threat. The technical term is their hors de combat.

And so, at that point, you have a requirement to rescue them. And in fact, interestingly, in a subsequent boat strike, this administration did, in fact, rescue two survivors and return them to their home country. So, it's unclear to me, Omar, why we took this step. And I think it does -- it does indicate a need to take a hard look at exactly what happened in that first strike.

Second point to conclude, from an intelligence perspective, I really question killing these survivors. Why not capture them, interrogate them, use the information you get to drop a plumb line back to Nicolas Maduro? That would be a more effective thing to do.

So, I think the -- if these reports are true, I think they raise questions both of laws of war and on efficacy and intelligence gathering.

JIMENEZ: Well, you know, another aspect of this is President Trump suggested yesterday that the United States is preparing to take new action against alleged -- alleged drug traffickers. That could include strikes on land. That would be starting, quote, "very soon," to use his words. I just wonder what you make of the implications there and what -- what could that sort of land threshold being crossed actually look like here?

STAVRIDIS: Let's start with the physical size of Venezuela. It's a big country. It's twice the size of California. Got a population kind of 35 million plus, not unlike size-wise Afghanistan or Iraq. So, big country, big population. Putting boots on the ground strikes me as a bad idea. You'd need a lot more than the 15,000 troops or so that we have floating off the coast right now.

So, if -- when President Trump says we're going to do land operations or land strikes, I hope what he means is to use air power, drones, Tomahawk missiles, manned aircraft if necessary, to go after drug- related targets ashore. I hope that's what he's talking about, not putting boots on the ground. I think the latter would be a very questionable enterprise.

JIMENEZ: But even in the -- if it's a drone strike or other sort of unmanned -- unmanned aerial vehicle or something like that, I mean, what -- are there wider implications for carrying out strikes like that on Venezuelan soil as opposed to some of these boats that are, you know, off the coast, perhaps in international waters? How does that change sort of the, I guess, threat assessment or -- or the -- or, I guess, the -- the -- the calculation of damage in a situation like this?

STAVRIDIS: Using the logic the administration has purported, which is that this is an act of war, the launching of drugs from Venezuela toward the United States. At that stage, you are -- again, this is the Trump administration's analysis, not my own -- but you are -- you are conducting combat operations. That's what is justifying the strikes and the sinking of the boats.

When you take it ashore, Omar, it does raise it to another level. You're now doing this not in international waters, but on sovereign territory of another state. But if you follow the logic of what the Trump administration has laid out, it's merely the next move on the anti-narcotic chessboard. Where this would begin to get very difficult to assess is if you took kind of the next step and put boots on the ground. You've got U.S. troops involved in combat. Venezuela has a pretty big army, about 65,000.

[15:20:04]

They have a huge militia, several hundred thousand. Boots on the ground would be a -- a real challenge and beyond the capacity of what's offshore. So, I don't look for that, but I do think some strikes are coming. And the Trump administration will continue the logic that we're in a combat situation, defending ourselves from drugs coming toward us.

JIMENEZ: Admiral James Stavridis, appreciate the perspective. Thanks for being here.

STAVRIDIS: You bet.

JIMENEZ: All right, coming up next, the death toll is rising after the devastating high-rise fire in Hong Kong. One-hundred and twenty-eight people are confirmed dead, but many more are still missing. We'll have the latest coming up.

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[15:25:23] JIMENEZ: Hong Kong authorities say they've made eight new arrests after the catastrophic apartment fire that killed at least 128 people -- hundreds more remain missing, by the way -- as investigators are working to figure out what exactly ignited the fire and as surviving residents try to process what happened. CNN International Correspondent, Hanako Montgomery, has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HANAKO MONTGOMERY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Hong Kong's worst fire disaster in decades left seven high-rise residential towers standing only as burnt-out shells. Well over a hundred people are dead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MONTGOMERY (on camera): The Hong Kong authorities said that by Friday morning local time, the fire was completely extinguished at the housing complex behind me. But they say that around 200 people still remain missing and they fear the death toll could go up in the coming hours, if not days.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MONTGOMERY (voiceover): Over 48 hours after the disaster, some new detail as to how the fire at the Wang Fuk Court complex spread so quickly and so severely. With an investigation set to take up to a month, early questions have focused on construction cladding that had covered the buildings for up to a year.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS TANG, HONG KONG SECURITY CHIEF (through interpreter): It ignited the mesh nets and quickly spread to the polystyrene boards around the windows, resulting in the fire in other floors and buildings.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MONTGOMERY (voiceover): Authorities have also said they are investigating whether the fire alarms were functioning properly on the day of the blaze. Several residents who spoke to CNN said that the alarms in their buildings never rang and some only discovered there was a fire when they looked outside.

Authorities believe the blaze began close to ground level on building six, around 2:30 on Wednesday afternoon. Images have surfaced on social media of the early embers of what would become a raging inferno, creeping up the cladding then spreading to the other buildings.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MONTGOMERY: Have you seen a disaster like this in your careers?

WALLACE, AUXILIARY MEDICAL SERVICE VOLUNTEER (through interpreter): I have served in the Auxiliary Medical Service for about 10 years. I joined the team at 16 and now I'm 26. I have never seen such a shocking scene appear in front of me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MONTGOMERY (voiceover): Survivors have described their panic, many unsure of how to escape the burning buildings.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is my home, look over there, the 10th floor, that's where my home was. By the hills, that's where it used to be. I really want to go back, but my home is probably gone now. They won't let us go back, so when I look in that direction, my heart feels so heavy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MONTGOMERY (voiceover): This domestic worker watched from her employer's high-rise apartment as the fire took hold.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: At first, so panicked, I was so scared because the fire burned so big. At first, yeah, so scared and panicked.

MONTGOMERY (on camera): And now, how are you doing?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Now, when I think about it, I'm grateful because I'm still alive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MONTGOMERY (voiceover): Hong Kongers will band together to help the victims of a disaster which is not yet over.

Hanako Montgomery, CNN, Hong Kong.

JIMENEZ: Thank you, Hanako, for that reporting.

Just ahead, Afghan communities in the United States are condemning the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., but there are also growing concerns over the impact it could have on the immigration process for other Afghan refugees. Stay with us.

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