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ACLU Sues Louisiana Over ICE Interference Law; Enforcement Operations Underway Across New Orleans; Fear, Anxiety in Minnesota as ICE Operation Targets Somalis; Man Who Had Affair with Brian Walshe's Wife Testifies. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired December 04, 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's day two of the immigration crackdown in New Orleans, and the city council meeting erupted in protest this morning after public comment was suspended. Residents began chanting and demanding their voices be heard.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(CROWD CHANTING)

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KEILAR: The demonstrators were calling for ICE-free zones. A number of people had to be removed from that meeting. At least one person was physically carried out by police. Elsewhere in the city, the mayor spoke out with this message to worried residents.

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MAYOR LATOYA CANTRELL, NEW ORLEANS: What I know is that as of today, that the city of New Orleans, again, stands in solidarity with every resident within our community and making sure that they know their rights. And you know what? They feel safe.

And we're going to continue to ensure that every step of the way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[15:35:00]

KEILAR: We're joined now by Alanah Odoms, the executive director of ACLU Louisiana. Alanah, thanks for being with us. And first off, just in the course of these enforcement operations that began yesterday, has the ACLU received any credible reports of rights being violated?

ALANAH ODOMS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ACLU LOUISIANA: In Louisiana, we stand on the front lines of this national crisis, and we have received various reports of documented incidents of border patrol agents, accosting individuals and abducting them from several businesses and also from several areas in the community where they were working on homes and in private residences. So, yes, it is documented. The federal government has, in fact, unleashed this very callous campaign to hunt, detain and disappear undocumented people in Louisiana and in particular in New Orleans without due process.

KEILAR: Videos obtained by CNN show federal agents chasing a U.S. born woman back to her home in Marrero, Louisiana. That was on Wednesday. And the woman tells CNN that she was walking home from the grocery store when masked federal agents in an SUV attempted to approach her just outside of her house.

Video shows her stepfather confronting the agents before those agents got in their cars and left. I should note that CNN has reached out to DHS trying to get more information on this. Do you know anything else about what happened here?

ODOMS: We don't, and I think you're hitting on a point that is the most important. There is a lack of transparency with DHS. There have been many calls from the community for DHS and Border Patrol to identify who they are abducting.

Those calls have come from our mayor elect. Those calls have come from our organization and from others that are working in the community. And it seems apparent to me and to everyone else that if a law enforcement agency is, in fact, using its police power to abduct and obtain -- retain individuals and bring them into the system, they could at the very least identify who those persons are and be able to share that information transparently with the community.

And that is not happening.

KEILAR: The ACLU is part of a First Amendment lawsuit against Louisiana's attorney general that alleges the state uses threats of vague felonies against New Orleans residents -- residents who are letting immigrants know about their rights. This would include people who are doing know your rights seminars, for instance. This is related to this relatively new Louisiana Act 399.

Can you explain more about the act and what the lawsuit is seeking?

ODOMS: Absolutely. So Act 399 criminalizes First Amendment protected speech by essentially suggesting that if anyone were to delay, thwart or interfere with Border Patrol agents trying to affect arrests of individuals, they could be charged with a crime. And the reason why we believe that this is a First Amendment violation is because the words delay or interfere or thwart are very vague.

And we believe that the attorney general is using this vagueness to intimidate and to threaten and to chill First Amendment speech. You'll notice that many community members prior to today had not been exercising protest or speech or assembly or their right to videotape individuals, Border Patrol agents. And that is because organizations like mine and the plaintiff in our case, Isla, felt very concerned about sending people out into the streets, very concerned about having people exercising the right to speak with undocumented persons, to give them advice about how to remain safe, to help them to provide mutual aid for our children who can't attend school and families who can't attend work.

All of that could potentially be criminalized by Act 399. And this morning we had our first hearing on the matter, and we are elated to know that the attorney general has said that Act 399 cannot criminalize protected First Amendment speech. It cannot criminalize know your rights presentations, and it cannot, in fact, deter people from engaging in speech conduct that the First Amendment says that they are permitted to do.

KEILAR: So we just learned that the judge declined to issue a temporary restraining order after this lawsuit was filed. It sounds like you are pointing to comments from the attorney general where you feel that you got some clarification on what is put under this law, what is what is sort of protected and not under this law.

ODOMS: That's exactly correct.

[15:40:00]

We are relying on statements from the attorney general where, in fact, she said that know your rights presentations would not be included under the violations under Act 399, and that protests certainly would not be included or criminalized under Act 399.

And she even went further. Her attorneys rather even went further to say that unless there were acts of violence, that there would be no conduct that would rise to the level of criminalization under this act. So therefore, the judge did not need to issue a temporary restraining order because the government did, in fact, concede that the very conduct that we are seeking to make sure is protected was, in fact, protected.

KEILAR: Alanah Odom, thank you so much for being with us as a lot of eyes are on Louisiana right now in New Orleans. We appreciate it.

ODOMS: Thank you so much.

KEILAR: Boris.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: New Orleans, we should note, not the only place confronting a surge of federal agents. Fear and anxiety is growing across Minneapolis as well. Federal deportation push went into effect there yesterday as local officials are vowing to protect Somali residents.

CNN law enforcement correspondent Whitney Wild has more from Minneapolis.

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WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: There is an enormous Somali population here in Minneapolis. There are more than 80,000 people who are Somali here. Fifty eight percent of them were born in the United States.

Eighty seven percent of them are U.S. citizens. And even still, there is palpable fear and anxiety. We spoke with one woman who's 24 years old. She's Somali. She was born in the United States. She is an American.

And she said after speaking with her family, she decided to carry a passport here because she's concerned about what would happen if she interacts with ICE. And she told us that experience of carrying a passport as an American citizen was simply, in her words, insane.

City officials are trying to do whatever they can to protect the community here in Minneapolis. Mayor Jacob Fry has passed a city ordinance that prohibits ICE from using public parking lots -- city parking lots, rather, for ICE operations, for staging, for example, before they go out on an operation. So that is one way that the city of Minneapolis is responding in a policy way.

Here, we are not seeing this sort of big use of force that we saw from Customs and Border Patrol that we saw in, say, Chicago or New Orleans. Here, what we're seeing on social media is these sort of smaller, one- off interactions with federal agents. For example, our reporter here saw multiple federal agents who were armed questioning a man and then eventually leaving outside one of the areas where Somalis gather. It's a Somali mall here in Minneapolis.

There remains more to be seen. We are going to be continuing to watch these operations as they unfold in Minneapolis.

Whitney Wild, CNN, Minneapolis.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: Whitney, thank you for that report.

We've got some intimate details to share with you that were revealed in the trial of the man accused of killing and dismembering his wife, a pivotal witness taking the stand in that case. We've got the details next.

[15:45:00]

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SANCHEZ: It is now day four in the Brian Walshe murder trial. Earlier, a key witness took the stand, the secret lover of Walshe's deceased wife, William Fastow. Fastow, who met the Walshe's when he sold Ana a D.C. townhome, was questioned about his romantic relationship with her and whether he knew -- whether her husband knew about the affair. CNN's Jean Casarez has been following all of today's testimony.

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JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Really big day in the courtroom in Massachusetts today for the Brian Walshe trial. The witness that everyone has been waiting for, William Fastow, took the stand. He said that he is a real estate broker in the Washington, D.C. area and he was having an affair with Ana Walshe at the time of her death. He testified that he actually sold the townhouse that she purchased in D.C. to her and they became fast friends. They began became confidants very quickly and very quickly after that they became intimate. He testified that he had just separated from his wife about a month before he had young children.

Also, she, of course, still married to Brian Walshe. Very important to her. He testified that she didn't want anyone to know she was having the affair with him.

She said that she wanted to have the dignity when the time came, if the time came, to tell Brian herself what was happening. But his friends knew they socialized with them all the time, out to dinner. She went out with him on his boat in Annapolis.

But there was a point in this testimony where it came out and this was on cross-examination that Ana Walshe still loved her husband. Take a listen.

KELLI PORGES, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: At the same time, you were having conversations just about her marriage and your relationship. You knew that it was always a possibility after having these conversations that Ana would stay with Brian, the father of her children.

WILLIAM FASTOW, ANA WALSHE'S ROMANTIC PARTNER: Yes.

PORGES: And while she would talk to you about arguments they had about finances or the stress of his federal case, she always spoke to you about him in a positive light.

FASTOW: Yes.

PORGES: And you knew from her, from her words, that she cared for him deeply.

FASTOW: Very much so.

PORGES: And I believe during these times when you would talk about her relationship with Brian Walshe, she wanted everyone to see him in the light that she saw him.

FASTOW: Very much so.

[15:50:00]

CASAREZ: Prosecutors are trying to show through this witness that there was premeditation, that Brian Walshe actually knew there was someone his wife was seeing. And that would have created the desire and the premeditated plan to murder her.

One last thing today. So far, that has been very visual, to say the least. Prosecutors put on video of a man walking at an apartment complex with a very heavy bag.

You can see that two dumpsters, putting the bag in the dumpster, staying in that area for a little bit and then walking out and driving away, in what was documented as a Volvo. And Brian Walshe owned that type of car -- Boris, Brianna. (END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: Our thanks to Jean for that.

Now to some of the other headlines that we're watching this hour. A weekly gauge of the job market had one of its best showings in about three years.

First time jobless claims fell to 191,000 in the latest week. Still, the level of continuing claims is stuck near a four year high, which signals that when people do lose a job, they're finding it difficult to find a new one.

A Turkey Day tradition turned into an all time record for the NFL. More than 57 million people reportedly tuned in to watch the Dallas Cowboys take on the Kansas City Chiefs on Thanksgiving Day. That's actually the largest audience for an NFL regular season game ever. The Cowboys game away -- the Cowboys came away victorious, of course, 31 to 28.

And Bad Bunny is the number one streaming artist in the world, according to Spotify's wrapped year in review. The Puerto Rican superstar racking up nearly 20 billion, yes, billion with a B, streams this year on Spotify. He also clinched the top album of the year.

It's actually the fourth year Bad Bunny has been named the world's top artist by streams. Rounding out the top five, Taylor Swift, who was actually number one in the U.S., followed by The Weeknd, Drake and Billie Eilish.

And ahead, self-driving cars are driving more like humans. And we don't mean that in a good way. The alarming concerns that Waymo cars are becoming not so nice on the road.

[15:55:00]

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SANCHEZ: Waymo's are getting way more aggressive. That's the observation some passengers have recently made about these self- driving cars.

KEILAR: And Waymo agrees. It admits it's programming its cars to be more, quote, confidently assertive. And this comes as the cars are expanding into several cities.

Clare Duffy is tracking this story for us. All right, Clare, what does that mean? Confidently assertive.

CLARE DUFFY, CNN BUSINESS TECH REPORTER: Yes, many people will know that Waymo's at this point are pretty well known for being extremely polite, deferential drivers, almost to the point of annoying customers or creating inadvertent issues. And so Waymo is making this software update to make its cars what it calls safely or confidently assertive to try to model them more off of human drivers who understand that sometimes the rules of the road you can't follow in exactly the way that you would expect.

So, for example, if there's a moving truck blocking the lane unloading packages for 20 minutes, you might need to cross over that double yellow line to go around that truck so that you're not holding up traffic. That is the sort of thing that Waymo is trying to train its cars to do better here.

But of course, this is a very fine line to walk. And it comes as Waymo has been involved in some fairly high profile safety incidents in recent months. A beloved bodega cat in San Francisco was hit and killed by a Waymo just a few weeks ago.

We've seen reports of Waymo's going around school buses that had their stop signs up, indicating that kids were getting off of the buses. We've also seen a Waymo pulled over in California after making an illegal U-turn.

But Waymo is saying here essentially that those safety incidents are disconnected from this move to make its cars more confidently assertive. It says that its cars are still safer than human drivers. These cars have passed 100 million miles driven without human drivers.

And as you said, they continue to expand and more into more U.S. cities, five cities where they're currently available, 20 plus where they are either testing or have planned launches. And the company says that its cars have 92 percent fewer crashes with pedestrian injuries than human drivers. When I asked Waymo about these safety concerns, here's what a spokesperson told me.

They said, "Safety is fundamental to everything we do. The data shows that we are improving road safety in the communities in which we operate. And we're proud of our record of achieving a fivefold reduction in injury related crashes and 12 times fewer injury crashes involving pedestrians compared to human drivers."

But look, Boris and Brianna, part of the challenge here is that there isn't quite the same clear path to accountability if something goes wrong in a Waymo versus a human driver. The regulations around this technology are kind of all over the place. And that is, I think, a big challenge here as we continue to see these cars become available in more cities.

KEILAR: Yes, how do you do a traffic stop when there's no driver.

SANCHEZ: For a bodega cat.

KEILAR: For that cat.

SANCHEZ: Forever in our hearts.

KEILAR: I always remember that cat. Clare Duffy, thank you so much. We needed that report.

When it comes to picking the color of the year, Pantone is waving a white flag. No, but really, the Pantone Color Institute has named its 2026 color of the year Cloud Dancer. Pantone describes it as a billowy, balanced white imbued with a feeling of serenity. It gives you a sense of calm in a frenetic society.

[16:00:00]

SANCHEZ: Serenity now. Another name for this, though, might also just be white. Pantone has picked a color of the year since 1999. Never picked a shade of white before. It says the color is associated with new beginnings, with a fresh start. We could all use one of those.

"THE ARENA" with Kasie Hunt starts right now.

KEILAR: Fresh start.

SANCHEZ: There you go.

END