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Rare Level 4 of 5 Risk for Severe Thunderstorms for KS, MO, NE; Severe Storm Outbreak to Peak Today, Bring More Misery; Elon Musk Loses Case Against OpenAI; Four Crew Members Eject Safely After Two Navy Jets Collide; U.S. Ramps Up Pressure on Cuba With Potential Castro Indictment. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired May 18, 2026 - 13:30   ET

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

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[13:30:25]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Right now, we're approaching a potentially dangerous window for extreme weather in the central U.S. The system that spawned this Tornado in Nebraska yesterday is expected to peak in the coming hours, leading officials to issue a rare Level 4 of 5 risk for severe thunderstorms in the region. The threat also includes EF3 tornadoes or possibly stronger, and softball-sized hail.

Sunday's twister that shredded Howard County, Nebraska left a dog and two people trapped. You can see crews managing to rescue them from the basement of a collapsed home. CNN Meteorologist, Derek Van Dam is in the Extreme Weather Center tracking all of this. Derek, what are you seeing?

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, Boris, there were reports of homes being completely taken off of their slabs. This is the severe weather threat that we have today. Remember, this is a multi-day severe storm threat that peaks this afternoon into this evening. It's the push and pull between the warm and the cold, and that's allowing the thunderstorms to fire up. In fact, there was a line that moved through Chicago Midway Airport about an hour ago. They reported 79- mile-per-hour wind gusts with this and this isn't even the threatening batch of storms that's going to develop to its west. We have severe thunderstorm watches across the Midwest, including Michigan until 8 p.m. this evening with more watches to follow this evening.

We're highlighting this area. This is the level 4 of 5 for the potential of strong to intense, maybe long-track tornadoes, that could stay on the ground for several minutes causing widespread destruction, of course, if they reach residence and populated areas. So here's a timeline, it's really evening into the overnight hours when these discrete super cells that we are concerned about erupting here in the next couple of hours will cause the most potential damage. As they move into a more stable atmosphere, it'll rain itself out and then the potential leads to more flash flooding across Missouri. So this is also a threat of this very dynamic storm system, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Derek, it's not just tornadoes that you're tracking. There's also some wildfire danger as well.

VAN DAM: Yeah, look at this video. This is coming out of southeast Colorado yesterday. Look at the fanning of the flames from the strong winds. Well, we're going to repeat that today. We have a very rare, extremely critical fire danger across the panhandle of Texas into Oklahoma and southeast Colorado once again. So if you're in Amarillo, you need to have multiple ways to receive weather alerts and be prepared to evacuate immediately.

This is what's making it so challenging for firefighters on the ground, that cold front sparking the thunderstorms to the north is going to change the wind directions, making it very difficult for the firefighters to find that forward flank on the fires.

SANCHEZ: And Derek, forgive the shameless plug, but you can stay on top of all of this with the new CNN Weather app, right?

VAN DAM: Well, this is such a great time to actually talk about it because we've been working behind the scenes on this brand new app, which I have on my phone, that I'm going to manipulate in real time here so you can get an idea of what it looks like. It's beautifully simple to use at home and it's going to match stunning visuals with the creative storytelling that only CNN really can offer. And what's going to make this particularly different from other weather apps out there on the market is that our team of meteorologists and experts will guide you through live severe weather outbreaks as they happen in real time.

So this is absolutely critical. We also give you rundowns on our confidence in the forecast for the day's events. You can see that here. I'm scrolling through it in real time and you can see our confidence in today's severe weather event is high because we see all of the ingredients coming together. But when we talk about the ability to get specific, this is amazing. You can get all of the detailed parameters, so you can plan your day according to hour by hour weather forecasts on whatever weather parameter that you require.

And then you can take it even further than that, because you can go past the weather forecast and look at these stunning visuals that will show you about the weather and the beautiful part of our nature and science that we can just show here at CNN. It is a stunning app. I encourage people to download it today on the Apple App Store. Boris?

SANCHEZ: A solid addition to any smartphone. Derek Van Dam, thank you so much. Brianna?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Terrifying moments during an air show in Idaho on Sunday. Just take a look at this video. Two U.S. Navy EA-18G Growlers colliding with each other. This was at an air show at the Mountain Home Air Force Base. It's about 50 miles south of Boise and you see all of those parachutes there. The four crew members from both of those jets ejected safely.

[13:35:00]

Officials do say that one of those crew members is hospitalized with a non life-threatening injury. The other three did not sustain injuries and this crash is now under investigation.

CNN Transportation Analyst, Mary Schiavo is with us now. Mary, I mean, it's just amazing that they're all OK or going to be OK, right? These planes, they get so close. I know we've seen collisions before. I'm not sure that we've seen planes essentially get kind of tangled up like this. What stands out to you in the video?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN TRANSPORTATION ANALYST: Well, that's right. I mean, what stands out is these planes were literally belly-to-belly or top- to-bottom on the planes. And when using ejection seats, first of all, they don't always work. So everyone was very fortunate here that everything was working as it should. And then the chutes can be tangled up in each other. They were at very close proximity to each other and in the plane and the wreckage.

So, you know, thank heavens, just, you know, fortunate that everything worked and all four chutes. I think the announcer at the air show said, you know, good news, we see four chutes. And that literally, you know, was a combined sigh of relief from the people at the air show. So fortunate that everything worked in that regard.

KEILAR: So when you look at this video, what do you see happening? What questions does that raise? And what have prior investigations shown about collisions during these kinds of demonstrations?

SCHIAVO: Well, you know, the Navy, the military will have control over this investigation. They'll issue two reports. One will be available to the public as about what happened and the other will be on recommendation so this doesn't happen again. But this particular aircraft did crash about a little over a year and a half, almost two years ago. And that investigation is still ongoing.

And what happened there, they were doing low flying close to the ground and it hit the ground. So given that that one's still ongoing and given what we saw in this flight sequence of one plane descending upon top of the other, three things stand out.

One, the plane that was being descended upon was in the other aircraft's blind spot. Now, every plane has blind spots where the pilot can't see, you know, they don't have any rear view mirrors, as I like to remind people, and they can't see under them. And then also there was a slight turn.

So they'll be looking at what were the communications and, you know, what was the planned air show. The other in the past, we've talked about a lot of air show accidents on the show. And one thing that's really important is the pre-show planning.

What was planned to do? What was the training? Have these people flown this many times before? You know, the Blue Angels do this every day. That's their living. So did the Thunderbirds who were at this show.

And even before every show, they practice at the airfield for a day or two, many times before the show. So they will look at the training and what they were supposed to do at the show. And the third thing they'll be looking at is, this is a remarkable plane. It's the EA-18 that stands for electronic attack. This plane's nickname is the jet that blinds everything. And what it does is it takes off from carriers and escorts other attack planes. And it literally blinds the enemy. They can't communicate. They can't get their targets.

It's so remarkable. The only other country we've let have these planes is Australia. And they'll be wanting to know in the investigation, did anything happen with this plane's electronics? Is it wildly possible that the plane, one plane blinded the other or there were a lack of communications because of equipment failure?

And then finally, in addition to piloting, they'll look at the winds. Now the weather looks clear, looks great. But if there were any winds aloft or anything that was causing these planes to be difficult to control in the wind, it shouldn't have been that way. But they'll look at the weather as well, and especially the actual piloting. And they have four living pilots to help them in the investigation. Thank heavens.

KEILAR: Yes. Thank heavens indeed. Mary, always great to get your expertise here. Thank you.

SCHIAVO: Thank you.

KEILAR: Still ahead, a new warning from Cuba's president as the Trump administration ramps up its pressure campaign on the island. He says any U.S. military assault on the island nation will cause a blood bath.

We'll discuss next.

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[13:44:03]

KEILAR: Breaking News. Elon Musk losing in a battle against OpenAI's Sam Altman.

SANCHEZ: CNN's Hadas Gold is standing by on this. Hadas, talk to us about what the jury decided.

HADAS GOLD, CNN A.I. CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, the jury deliberated for just about 90 minutes, pretty fast for the magnitude of this trial. And they found that Elon Musk waited too long to bring this case against OpenAI and against Sam Altman, whether they deceived him and unjustly enriched themselves when they transitioned OpenAI from a pure non-profit to its current for-profit structure overseen by a non- profit foundation.

And essentially, the jury of nine Californians found that the statute of limitations on all of his claims had passed. OpenAI transitioned to have this for-profit structure five years ago. The statute of limitations was three years ago. Elon Musk's attorneys tried to argue against that. But obviously, the jury found that this was all essentially moot. The statute of limitations was the very first thing that the jury had to consider.

[13:45:00]

That was per the judge's instructions because, again, if they found that the statute of limitations had passed, all of those other claims were moot. So this is really a landmark moment for the A.I. industry, because what it means is that OpenAI will be able to continue on with its current path, continue developing it's A.I., and will be able to continue on towards its initial public offering, expected to be later this year.

OpenAI, one of the most valuable tech companies out there, this IPO is expected to be massive. Had Elon Musk won, one of the remedies he was seeking was for OpenAI to revert back to being a non-profit, for Sam Altman to lose his job, that would have completely scrambled the A.I. industry and scrambled OpenAI's plans. Now though, Elon Musk has lost in this massive lawsuit, and OpenAI's plans can continue on as they wanted them to.

KEILAR: Yeah, it's very big. Hadas, thank you so much for taking us through that. Let's bring in technology journalist and host of "The Rip Current" podcast, Jacob Ward.

Jacob, it's interesting. So this came down to the statute of limitations issue, but there was this discussion, critics of Elon Musk were saying this wasn't about sort of a principled stand that he was talking about, OpenAI should be public, that this was actually about him not wanting to deal with another A.I. competitor. I guess we didn't fully get that answered, but I wonder how you're seeing this verdict.

JACOB WARD, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yeah, I mean, Brianna, that didn't take long, right?

(LAUGH)

WARD: And I think, as a result, we did not get into so many of the issues that were raised in this. Questions of Sam Altman's trustworthiness and the litany of witnesses who described him as having a "pattern of lying," all of the stuff around Musk and whether or not he wanted control of the company and basically took his football and went home when he couldn't have it.

And then all of this other bigger stuff around, you know, who will control the fate of the world? At one point in one document, there was discussion of whether a 12-member board or a 16-member board was more appropriate for a company that literally thought it would have the weight of the world on its shoulders, the fate and the weight of the world. So we never got into any of that.

It just turns out it came down to this statute of limitations question. And you know, I think that it is an enormous sigh of relief for OpenAI, for Microsoft, which was held as a sort of co-defendant here. Satya Nadella, the CEO, appearing on the stand and basically saying, please leave me out of this. I'm sure a huge sigh of relief there.

And now the path is clear, right? Anthropic and OpenAI together control like 89 percent of startup revenues in the A.I. space. And just today, OpenAI rolled out a whole bunch of personal finance tools that are going to allow people to connect their bank accounts. So suddenly, the pathway is open here to this enormous initial public offering. This IPO that OpenAI supposedly has planned could be valued at something like a trillion dollars. And this was, you know, in many ways, the last thing standing between them and all of that, you guys.

SANCHEZ: Conversely, what are the implications for Musk as he tries to chart a path forward for his own A.I. venture?

WARD: Yeah, so xAI, the competitor to OpenAI, is, by all accounts, you know, behind in terms of its technological capabilities. That said, you know, Musk and Altman are both -- their companies are both now part of Pentagon systems for military use. You know, Musk, with his government connections, still gets xAI into all sorts of government systems. And so it's not like he's going to be hurting for money, but he will not be the leader in this field.

And I'm sure for a guy who's used to being the face of the space revolution or the E.V. revolution or, you know, Neuralink, the connection between mind and machine, I'm sure for him it is extremely disappointing not to suddenly be able to be the face of this world changing piece of technology.

KEILAR: And Jacob, I mean, I guess since this was a statute of limitations issue and we don't get into all those other issues. I would ask you, would we have been served getting into all of those other issues as people have so many concerns about A.I. and the people who are going to be leading this?

WARD: Brianna, what a great question. That is a very thoughtful, I think, way of thinking about this. You're absolutely right. I mean, the reason that all of us reporters were gathered in that courthouse was not for the rumors, not to just see what it's like when billionaires throw lawyers at each other. It was to get to some fundamental questions about their motivations.

What did they want out of these companies? What did they think these companies were going to go on to do? What was their idea about how this stuff should be governed, if at all, by any sort of democratic input? This is an industry and a technology that has been absolutely, you know, absolved of any democratic responsibility to anybody.

And at this point, as we're seeing this stuff flood into our jobs and flood into our civic systems, nobody is getting any kind of choice in whether or not we engage with it. And so this was a rare opportunity for these jurors to advise a judge in this one courtroom in Oakland and would actually have been a little bit of democratic input that could have maybe slowed the machine down.

[13:50:00]

But now, that machine gets to keep running the way it has been running. And all of us, I think, will be -- certainly, I will be waiting for the next opportunity to look into these companies the way that this trial allowed us to.

SANCHEZ: Yeah, Jacob Ward. Thanks so much for sharing your perspective. Some huge news just into CNN, Elon Musk losing his case against OpenAI on the grounds of statute of limitations expiring. We'll stay on top of the latest and bring it to you as we get it. Stay with CNN.

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[13:55:19]

SANCHEZ: Cuba's president is now warning of a "bloodbath" if the U.S. takes military action against the island. Cuban President Miguel Diaz- Canel posting on social media, adding "Cuba poses no threat, nor does it have aggressive plans or intentions against any country. It has none against the U.S., nor has it ever had any." Diaz-Canel went on to say that Cuba is suffering a multidimensional aggression from the U.S. and that it has the absolute right to defend itself.

Let's discuss with Michael J. Bustamante. He's the Chair in Cuban and Cuban-American studies at the University of Miami. Michael, thank you so much for being with us.

So, President Trump over the weekend repeated that Cuba will make a deal with the U.S., adding in his view that Cuban-Americans want to go back and invest in the island, to his words, bring it back. How likely is Havana's current leadership to strike a deal with the White House and specifically one that is to the exile community's liking?

MICHAEL J. BUSTAMANTE, CHAIR, CUBAN & CUBAN-AMERICAN STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI: Well, thanks for having me. There's a lot of variables there in what you just laid out. I think certainly, the Trump presidency, the president himself, might be willing to live with a deal that largely focuses on economic openings and leaves some of the political questions about Cuba's future to the side. That's essentially been their approach in Venezuela. That is not going to be to the liking of many Cuban-Americans in South Florida.

And it also gets to what the Cuban government may or may not be willing to do. They are up against the wall as never before in terms of economic pressure, but they're holding firm for the moment at questions of political concessions that they have never believed are fair terrain for negotiation with Washington.

SANCHEZ: To that point, what leverage does Havana have to resist U.S. pressure? Is it likely that the regime would see internal change without military intervention?

BUSTAMANTE: The government in Cuba was really running out of any leverage at all, if they had any, much to begin with. There was a report in the last few days that two European shipping companies that are responsible for 60% of the stuff that goes into the island, including food, are pulling out in response to the secondary sanctions threat. That leaves, ironically, U.S. companies among the only ones still authorized to send food to Cuba under certain loopholes in the embargo, creating a real choke point.

So I really struggle to understand what the Cuban government can put on the table to push back against the United States pressure here. I think the question for them is whether they can buy time. They've been trying to buy time. They thought perhaps the war in Iran would distract U.S. attention. At least so far, that doesn't seem to be the case.

SANCHEZ: We've also learned the DOJ is set to unseal this indictment against Raul Castro, who will soon turn 95. The Cuban government is also mobilizing civilians around the possibility of some military action or invasion. I wonder what you think would happen if the U.S. were to remove Castro by force, the way that it did Maduro in Venezuela?

BUSTAMANTE: Well, I'm not sure we're going to get there. I think one thing is to present an indictment. To me, it's an open question as to how this indictment fits within the broader administration's pressure strategy. I think it could also work at cross-purposes to the attempt to get to some sort of negotiated solution, which appeared to be still the interest of the CIA director when he went to Havana the other day.

It does set the table or create the kind of pretext for the kind of operation that the United States pursued in Venezuela in January. But the optics of capturing a 94-, 95-year-old former head of state, I think, are a bit different. That said, if that were to happen, I think, in many ways, game over for the Cuban government as we know it. And they would have no choice but to see it on a number of issues.

SANCHEZ: I think on that front, in that scenario, and generally, when you look at past decades, one of the regime's levers against U.S. policy has been the weaponization of migration, right? The Mariel Boatlift in 1980, Maleconazo in 1994. Do you think Havana would again use mass migration as a response, especially given this administration's track record on immigration? Or do you think it's something that likely is going to be an outflow of a crisis anyway?

BUSTAMANTE: I think the authorities in Havana would really think twice about using migration in the way that they have in the past in this moment. If they are seeking to avoid a kind of a U.S. military action, under this administration, turning to migration as a safety valve in the way that they have in the past would surely create a risk of being interpreted in the White House as sort of a cause for action.

So I don't think they can use that tool to the same extent. Mass migration still remains a risk. I mean, there is the fact that Cuba has already lost a tremendous -- a record number of people in the last few years. There's a real question as to who's left --