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Deadly Storms Tear Across Central U.S. Causing Widespread Damage; Witkoff To Debrief Trump About Meeting With Putin; Interview With Former Deputy Secretary Of State Wendy Sherman; Some Dems Fuming As Schumer Helps Republicans Avoid Shutdown; 2nd Round Of Violent Storms Striking From Louisiana To Ohio; Trump Lashes Out At Political Enemies In Partisan DOJ Speech; Trump Asks Supreme Court To Take Up Birthright Citizenship; Trump Invokes "Alien Enemies Act" To Speed Up Mass Deportations; 911 Call In Idaho Student Murders Case Released; DOJ Probing If Pro-Palestinian Protests Broke Anti-Terror Laws. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired March 15, 2025 - 17:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:00:19]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN ANCHOR: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jessica Dean in New York.

We are following breaking news tonight as a dangerous storm system surges across the Deep South. Tornado warnings in effect in southern Mississippi and several other states as an intense and potentially violent tornado hit a short time ago.

Officials are warning numerous towns of a catastrophic threat. These storms have already caused widespread destruction in parts of Missouri and Arkansas, killing at least 14 people in those states. As many as 25 tornadoes striking overnight into the morning, leaving behind that destruction.

Meteorologist Derek Van Dam is joining us live with more on this. And Derek, the threat is not over. It continues.

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: No. Jessica, this is a particularly dangerous setup that we have ongoing right now across central Mississippi and now entering into western portions of Alabama.

But just to show you how chaotic this day has been, and to add on to the misery that we are dealing with across South Central Mississippi, there was a magnitude 3.0 earthquake that actually was felt in that particular region, or rather, was detected while there were simultaneous tornado warnings in the very same vicinity.

So, I mean, what is that, right? Is this even real life? I've never actually seen that as a meteorologist.

But kind of broadening the view here to show you what we're dealing with from Nashville, southward to Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, just outside of New Orleans, we have tornado watches, some of which are particularly dangerous situations.

They reserve that for only the most volatile and extreme environments. We have had today, between 8 and 12 concurrent tornado warnings. Right now, we have six just east of Jackson, near the border here of Alabama and Mississippi, and one that's just to the west of Birmingham.

So we're going to time these out for you. Meridian, beautiful town in eastern sections of Mississippi. We can see this tornado-warned storm has the potential to impact Meridian here within the next 10 to 15 minutes. So you want to be taking shelter with this storm.

And also this supercell here. Do you see that kind of curlicue that is a radar-indicated tornado, but that has got a very highly suspect look and feel to it. And just the nature of that radar scan there shows me that there's a potential for some rotation.

And you can see here just to the north and west of Birmingham, we have the potential for a tornado-warned storm to move through. We know that these have produced tornadoes on the ground. We've seen the footage and we've seen the damage.

And then just to the east of Nashville, we have new tornado warnings that are popping up across south central Tennessee. These are ongoing, part of a broader tornado outbreak that is occurring right now. It began yesterday and continues today.

You can see the greatest threats across this region, but in terms of timing, we saw the current radar.

But I want to give Atlanta a heads up because there's the potential for nocturnal tornadoes. By the time that you go to bed tonight, you may be woken up by lightning, thunder, and perhaps some notifications on your cell phones and perhaps even a tornado siren. As this system moves through between the time frame of 1:00 a.m. to 4:00 a.m. So you need to be prepared and have multiple ways to receive those emergency notifications.

By the way, you don't need a tornado on the ground to produce the damage that we're all concerned about. A lot of the winds mixing down from the upper levels of the atmosphere towards the surface have the potential to blow down significant amount of trees, especially in the higher elevations of northwest Georgia, for instance.

And then to put in a more complex scenario on top of the tornado and severe wind threat, the flash flooding that is ongoing from these storms that are training over the same locations.

We currently have flash flood warnings, inclusive of Nashville. You can see this band of rain, perhaps two inches per hour, starting to produce some impressive rainfall totals.

So that just adds to the calamity that we are dealing with here across the Gulf Coast and up towards the Tennessee River Valley.

Jessica, it is going to be a long and very dangerous night for residents across the southeast. DEAN: It certainly is. And Derek, were also getting an updated number

on the death toll. We're now up to 18 people dead from these storms so far.

So we hopefully -- hopefully everyone can stay safe as they continue to present quite a threat tonight. Thank you so much for all of that.

U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to make an appearance at Mar-a-Lago this weekend. A source telling CNN, Witkoff will brief President Trump and his national security team on his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

[17:04:49]

DEAN: You'll remember the two met Thursday in Moscow after Putin set out a series of tough conditions for peace with Ukraine.

CNN's Kevin Liptak is in West Palm Beach. Kevin, what more are you hearing about the Witkoff meeting? And then obviously he's there where you are in Florida this weekend.

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, what you've heard from American officials is a degree of cautious optimism that the ceasefire could be successful. That was after Witkoff met with Putin late into the evening on Thursday.

And even today, President Trump wrote on Truth Social that all signs seem to hopefully be very good. So you do hear this sort of positive vibe from the administration following that meeting.

But I think it's clear that there are some big differences between the U.S. position and the Russian position. Putin has laid out a number of conditions for a ceasefire, if he's agreed to it, including that the U.S. stop providing weapons to Ukraine over the course of this 30-day pause in fighting so that Ukraine isn't able to regroup and regroup on the battlefield.

So you do see some differences of opinion here. And I think it's clear that Putin does want a more substantive discussion to talk about sort of the terms of the deal on the ground to hash out a broader pause in the fighting.

What President Trump wants is very different. He wants an immediate end to the fighting so that the two sides can talk in the interim and come to some kind of agreement. So how the bridge is gapped, I think, remains to be seen.

One thing that Putin's aides said after this meeting with Witkoff is that the Russian president wanted to speak to President Trump to sort of get on the same page going forward.

And so that could be an item of discussion when Witkoff sits down with President Trump at Mar-a-Lago today, is to discuss the parameters of that phone call.

We also understand that the American national security adviser, Mike Waltz, as well as the Secretary of State Marco Rubio, will be in the discussion as well.

And it was interesting. Rubio just returned from a meeting of G7 foreign ministers in Canada. That group, in their final communique, did say that possible sanctions were in the offing for Russia if it did not come to an agreement on this ceasefire. So that could potentially be an item of discussion as well.

President Trump has not ruled out additional sanctions or, in his words, tariffs on Moscow if this war doesn't come to a quick end.

DEAN: All right. Kevin Liptak with the latest reporting. Thank you very much.

And joining us now is former deputy secretary of State Wendy Sherman. Thank you so much for being here with us this afternoon. We really appreciate it.

I do want to start with --

WENDY SHERMAN, FORMER DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE: Sure.

DEAN: -- yes, with the Trump administration's push for a ceasefire. Zelenskyy has accused Putin of trying to drag out the talks. Where are you and what is your opinion on if you think Putin is actually interested in peace.

SHERMAN: I think Putin is interested in having Ukraine. I was the person in the Biden administration who met with the Russians before the invasion. We knew from intelligence that, in fact, Putin was going to invade Ukraine. But we needed to try to do this last-minute diplomacy to see if there was any way to stop Putin.

But it was clear that Putin believes that Ukraine belongs to him. So one of the reasons that President Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, has talked about the need for security guarantees is because every time you give Putin a little bit, he wants more. And so Zelenskyy wants to make sure if there's a ceasefire and an ultimate peace.

And no one wants peace more than the Ukrainians. They're the ones who have suffered the most in this hostile invasion, remarked on by the G7 in the meeting that Secretary Rubio just had.

Quite frankly, I could have written the same statement that came out of the G7 talking about the importance of Ukraine's sovereignty.

So I think Putin is playing for time. I do think he has tough conditions. I think he would rather keep fighting until there's a peace agreement to try to get more land and have that as leverage in a peace negotiation.

So I believe President Trump, to sum it up, Jessica, has to be much tougher with Russia in the same way he has been tough with Zelenskyy and Ukraine, unfairly in my estimation, to get Russia to really come to the table to negotiate.

DEAN: And so to that point, the White House has created a lot of immediacy around these current talks. Diplomacy can take a lot of time, though. You have been in rooms like this.

What is it like negotiating with Russia? And it sounds like -- I think I know your answer to this, but can Putin be trusted?

SHERMAN: I don't ever believe in negotiations with adversaries that is based on trust. I know there's the famous statement from Reagan "trust but verify".

[17:09:49]

SHERMAN: I would say "respect but verify". Respect that every country has its own interests and Putin's interests are quite different than those of Ukraine.

You mentioned -- Kevin did a very good report -- and in fact, today or yesterday, I guess it was, Prime Minister Starmer of the United Kingdom of Great Britain held a video conference with nearly 30 other leaders talking about standing with Ukraine, being there for them, imposing further costs on Putin, unless he really came to the negotiation ready for what Zelenskyy has already accepted, which is an unconditional ceasefire.

Putin is not agreeing to an unconditional ceasefire. And as I said, I think that President Trump is going to have to impose some costs or potential costs for Putin for him to be serious.

Putin is a very tough negotiator. He is former KGB. He is very sure of himself. He knows what he wants and he'll probably try to go get it.

DEAN: And as you mentioned, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer says military planning -- planning for a potential Ukraine ceasefire will move to an operational phase after hosting this virtual summit of 25 countries.

Zelenskyy has said that peacekeeping forces need to be in Ukraine, that he needs those forces there. How do you see that piece of it playing out?

SHERMAN: Well, President Putin has said that there can be no European forces. Not only no NATO forces, but no European forces in Ukraine. And if there are peacekeepers, he will target them.

Now, that may be a negotiating position because quite frankly, there is no other way that I can think of to really have the security guarantee necessary and the peacekeeping necessary for whatever gets decided without Europe taking a lead role in this, with the United States providing logistical and intelligence backup. So there's going to be a very tough negotiation around this, Jessica.

You know, I think that what your viewers have to understand is this is very tough going. I'm not surprised that we're hearing positive noises out of the White House, because they want to give a sense that this can come to pass. And I certainly hope that it does, but I don't think it will unless Putin really sees that he will pay a cost from the United States and from Europe. Starmer has said that Europe would look at not only imposing costs on

oil sales, imposing further cuts, more sanctions. But he has also said that those demobilized foreign assets, assets of Russia would be used to support Ukraine.

So Europe is not backing off. Their security is at risk here. People are very concerned that if Putin gets what he wants in Ukraine, he will move on to the Baltics, he will move on to Poland.

That President Trump really believes in what's called spheres of influence that Russia should get whatever it can get, the United States should get what it can get, China should get what it can get in its regional arena.

The president has a very different view of national security and foreign policy than previous Republican and Democratic administrations.

DEAN: Is there anything, on that note -- is there anything about the way that the president is doing this that, while not alike with past administrations, could potentially reap some benefits?

SHERMAN: Sure. I think that we all understand that he has to have communication with Putin and with Russia to get them to the table. I think that the office meeting that was held with President Zelenskyy was outrageous.

I think it was wrong for President Trump to basically give Putin almost everything he wanted. Ukraine won't get into NATO; they'll have to give up territory; we'll have to talk about peacekeepers; hasn't added any real additional sanctions, although a few, but not any that really hurt Putin in any way or put him at risk beyond what was already on Putin.

So yes, I think the administration does have to connect with both parties here. I think it's important that Secretary Rubio met with the G7 and, as I said, came out with a statement in support of Ukraine and pretty tough on Russia.

I think it is important that the president engage Europe in these negotiations as well. So yes, I think there's some elements here. But I think there is a very strong missing piece and that is being tougher on Putin than the president has been on Ukraine, because Putin is, after all, the one who invaded a sovereign country.

[17:14:56]

DEAN: All right. Wendy Sherman, thank you so much. I really appreciate you being here. We appreciate your time this afternoon.

SHERMAN: Sure. Thank you, Jessica.

Still to come, President Trump is making it clear that his quest for political vengeance is alive and kicking as he revives his threats to prosecute or even jail his opponents. And the call is coming from inside the House. The Senate's top Democrat, now facing doubts from inside his own

party. Some say he's not adapting to the new political climate.

[17:15:24]

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I have great respect, by the way, for what Schumer did today. He went out and he said that we have to vote with the Republicans because it's the right thing to do.

I couldn't believe what I heard, but you know, I think he's going to get some credit for it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: That was President Trump yesterday praising Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's decision to vote for the measure for that Republican funding bill. It's exposing cracks though within the Democratic Party over how to best counter the Trump agenda.

Some fellow Democrats are becoming more outspoken about publicly criticizing his leadership.

CNN's Isaac Dovere has new reporting from the hill. Isaac, great to see you. You kind of dug into --

(CROSSTALK)

DEAN: -- what these Democrats are saying. A lot of it on background, but some people saying it on the record as well.

ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Yes, I spent some time on the Hill and on the phone with people -- a lot of senators, a lot of top aides and senators, as well as members of the House. There is deep, deep frustration with Chuck Schumer among a wide array of -- or a wide array of Democrats.

And I should say this is not about ideology or age or geography. It is across all the lines here, a feeling like as one aide to a senator said to me that they always knew that this situation was going to be a no-win for them, but it doesn't feel like it had to be this big of an L.

The feeling goes to a senator that I spoke with who said to me, look, he is not going to be the leader in two years of the Senate Democrats. The senator, a Democratic senator, was saying to me -- again not speaking out by name so far -- but saying that Schumer might even not be leader within two years.

There is this -- quirkiness about Chuck Schumer that people in the Democratic Party have always kind of found endearing, that he has a flip phone still. He always has it to his ear.

And that was those -- oh, he's in touch with a lot of people, hearing a lot of people out.

But in the last couple of days especially, it has really coalesced into a metaphor for a lot of people who are saying that he is out of touch. He's not up to date with where politics is, still using a flip phone. It's 2025 and it's really just turned on him in a deep, deep way now.

DEAN: It's also interesting too, Isaac, how so many people keep talking about just how they feel like the messaging on this was botched. That even if he was going to make this decision, he could have handled it, they believe, fellow Democrats in a very different way.

DOVERE: You know, we talk about messaging, but its more than messaging here. That's definitely part of it, the communication of what's happened.

But Senate Democrats themselves and lots of people around them say this was a failure on strategy. This was a failure in communication. This was a failure about what actually got into the bill.

And what they're worried about is not just this bill, which has a lot in it that will change which programs are funded and how much money and how much authority Donald Trump has to spend that money now as president without going to Congress again.

But that it is -- this was the easiest fight they felt like to have leverage in. And there are more fights coming down the road. And Democrats feel like now they have been left completely bereft when it comes to these other fights, and that they'll be in even worse shape for what they're going to be as the year goes on.

That's obviously good news for the Republicans and good news for Donald Trump.

DEAN: Yes.

The other thing that struck me, too, is just this idea that some Democrats were even saying to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, you know, primary him in a few years when he's up again.

You really are seeing, you know, it seems to me, and I'm curious what your take is talking to all of these people, that there's so much pent-up frustration with where the Democrats are right now. And now they kind of have a place to put it as well.

DOVERE: Yes, one of the things I read in the piece is that the Democratic Party is already slumping on the ropes after the last couple of months, since the November losses, but this was just hitting them even harder in so many ways. They just can't take any more dispiriting, any more devastation and they got a lot of it this week.

And they look forward here, again it's not just looking backwards, it's looking forwards and thinking about Chuck Schumer as the leader of a party here and as the leader of the Senate Democrats, who are hoping that maybe they can get a little bit closer to the majority in 2026 if everything goes right for them. We don't know.

And that maybe if that happens and then everything goes right for them in 2028, they could be in the majority by then. That's four years from now.

By then, Chuck Schumer would be 77 years old. It's really hard for a lot of Senate Democrats to imagine that he, at that point would be the right choice to be majority leader.

Of course, he would have to be running for what would be a sixth term in the Senate himself at that point, to stay in office until he was in his 80s.

[17:24:46]

DOVERE: So it's a -- its a generational thing. It's a lot of things that are going on at once here. And it's a big problem for Schumer and Democrats overall.

DEAN: It is kind of interesting. Yes, it's like Biden, Pelosi, McConnell -- they've all -- they're all -- that generation is gone. It will be interesting to see what happens next.

All right. Isaac Dovere, thank you so much.

President Trump is vowing to use the same Justice Department that once investigated him to go after his own enemies as he lashes out at his perceived opponents.

An urgent storm and tornado alerts are popping up across the southeastern United States tonight, as that large path of tornadoes carve a path of destruction through a lot of the country.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:29:51]

DEAN: We are following breaking news tonight as deadly storms barrel across the southeastern United States for a second day. Forecasters are warning EF-5 tornadoes, that is the most violent on the damage scale, are possible if not likely, in the coming hours.

Governors in several areas have declared states of emergency in either response to or ahead of this dangerous weather. CNN's Rafael Romo is joining us now from Birmingham, Alabama.

And, Rafael, we know the storms are headed your way. We're just looking at that map. It looks clear right now. But, you know, you just got to wait until that storm, that storm gets there and hope that those big tornadoes don't touch down.

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right Jessica. And it's been very interesting to see how the weather has changed significantly here in the last couple of hours.

I don't know if you can tell based on our shot, but it's starting to rain a very, very fine rain right now. There's also gusts that can be a little bit strong at points.

So let me show you how the sky has darkened. You see the low-lying clouds that appear to move much faster than normal.

Also, if you look behind me, those two flags there, the flags themselves are wrapped around the mast. Gives you an idea of how strong some of the winds are.

And I just got an update from authorities here at Jefferson County. They're telling me that they are dealing right now with what they describe as a particularly dangerous situation and are waiting, looking at the radar. There was lightning just a moment ago. They're looking at the radar, expecting the conditions to get even worse than they are right now.

And also, I was talking to the director, who told me that they are looking at what's happening elsewhere in the country. Eighteen people have died so far.

And this is what he had to say about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIM COKER, DIRECTOR JEFFERSON CO. EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY: It really tells all of us how serious the system is. It's an unfortunate reminder, a horrific reminder that some preparation somewhere just wasn't quite enough and people did lose their lives.

So over the last several days, we have done everything possible that we can do, used every tool that we have to make sure that our population is prepared.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAFAEL: And Jessica, the governors of both Georgia and Alabama, have already declared the state of emergency.

Now back to you.

DEAN: Rafael Romo, in Alabama, thank you so much for that.

President Trump has long railed against what he sees as the Justice Department being politicized against him. But on Friday, he gave a very political speech at the agency's Great Hall.

He said he was, quote, "turning the page on four-long-years of weaponization at the DOJ," and launched into a list of grievances about investigations into him with promises of punishment for those responsible.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We had to take all of that abuse. Even during the trials, we had to take tremendous abuse, like, you know, these wonderful guys.

They're not legitimate people there. They're horrible people. They're scum. And you have to know that.

What a difference a rigged and crooked election had on our country, when you think about it. And the people who did this to us should go to jail. They should go to jail.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: CNN's senior legal analyst, Elie Honig, is a former assistant U.S. attorney, former state and federal prosecutor.

Elie, good to see you.

I know you worked at DOJ for -- for many years. What was your response to this speech?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Jess, it was a debacle. And that's a universal sentiment, I can tell you, among past and present DOJ prosecutors.

First think I think it's important to understand, that crowd yesterday in the Great Hall at Justice Department headquarters, that was not the usual crowd you would see at a speech by an A.G., or the rare speech by a president.

That was not rank-and-file prosecutors like I once was. There were a few there. But generally, that was a curated crowd largely filled with political supporters of Donald Trump.

And what the president did is he walked into the Justice Department, he spent about an hour airing his own personal grievances, giving a sort of political stump speech, and really tearing down the very institution itself.

And if we look at Donald Trump's premise, his key premise, you can see it in those clips that we just saw, is that he was treated unfairly by prosecutors.

Let's grant that some of that is true. I certainly was outspoken. I believe some of the prosecutions against him were handled improperly.

But his response to that is not and we should make sure that that never happens again. His response to that is, now I get to do that to other people.

And I think that's the fundamental problem, to inject politics and vengefulness in the way Donald Trump did. That's why I think any DOJ prosecutor, past or present, you speak to will tell you that that was a disgrace.

DEAN: Yes. And yet we've heard from some Republicans who praised this. Do you think that's the intended audience here?

HONIG: I'm not sure who the intended audience is. But let me just address -- I've seen some of the praise. I've seen people say, well, he talked about the importance of combating violent crime, and he talked about the importance of stopping fentanyl. Sure. Yes. 60, 70 percent of that speech was fine, was the normal type

of stuff you would expect to hear from an A.G. or president. But that doesn't mean you can just ignore the 30 percent, 40 percent of it that was political, that was false, and that was vengeful.

[17:35:10]

DEAN: Yes. And, you know, the Supreme Court is signaling that it will consider Trump's request to lift a nationwide pause to it's -- it's plan to end birthright citizenship for children born to non-U.S. citizens.

I just -- I just want to get your thoughts on where you think that issue is going.

HONIG: So Trump is trying to end this practice of birthright citizenship, which is based in the 14th Amendment, goes back to 1868.

So far, every court, every lower federal court to consider Trump's position, six at least have rejected it. And that's Democratic- appointed judges, Republican-appointed judges.

Now, the Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to step in, at least on an emergency basis. The Supreme Court could have rejected that. But yesterday they said, "Well, we want to see your briefs.

Now, there's two issues. The one issue that the Supreme Court may consider is a long-standing problem of, can an individual district court judge stop something nationwide? That's a problem that's been going on for decades now.

But with respect to the birthright citizenship question itself, I don't think there's any real chance that the court sides with Donald Trump here.

I think birthright citizenship is long established in in the Constitution. Courts have upheld it for over a century now.

DEAN: And I also want to get your thoughts. We just, in the last couple of hours, have seen President Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act in order to expand the administration's ability to rapidly deport certain people.

There is a hearing on that later tonight. Where do you see that going?

HONIG: Well, I think one of the things that the Trump administration is going to have to show -- and they've made several efforts to aggressively use the law in the course of their immigration procedures -- they're going to have to show, first of all, that there is some sort of emergency or wartime scenario.

I'm not sure they're going to be able to make that showing. But it is important to note some of these laws do give the administration quite broad authority to take extreme measures when it comes to enforcing immigration. So I'm not sure how these are going to play out. I think it's going to turn on the specifics of which law the Trump administration is invoking here.

But they've made entirely clear that they intend to use any legal tools available to them to help with the immigration issue.

DEAN: All right. Elie Honig, as always, great to see you. Thanks for being with us on a Saturday. We appreciate it.

HONIG: Yes, appreciate it.

DEAN: What we're learning from a chilling new 911 call made the day four Idaho college students were brutally murdered.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:42:12]

DEAN: Tonight, an update on the shocking murders of four Idaho college students back in 2022. Authorities releasing a frantic 911 call in which a crying woman is telling dispatchers one of her friends is unconscious.

The man accused of the murders, Bryan Kohberger, is set to stand trial in August.

Julia Vargas Jones is following the story.

Julia, tell us more about this -- this newly revealed audio.

JULIA VARGAS JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jessica, this is the most harrowing look yet at what unfolded inside that home. You know, the fear, the confusion, it all comes through in that audio recording of the 911 call that CNN obtained.

I want to start in the moment the call was placed at the very beginning.

I'll just warn our viewers that this may be hard to hear.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DISPATCHER: 911 location of your emergency.

SURVIVING ROOMMATE: Something is happening. Something happened in our house. We don't know what.

DISPATCHER: What is the address of the emergency?

SURVIVING ROOMMATE: 1-1-2-2 -- (CRYING)

(END VIDEO CLIP) JONES: And you can hear the panic in their voices as they're struggling to explain what's happening. One voice trying to give the address to the dispatcher before breaking down in tears.

Essentially, that call goes on for about four minutes, Jessica. And at times, multiple people can be heard speaking to the dispatcher.

And at one point, she urges them not to pass the phone around, to just speak to one person. That confusion builds throughout the call as they report an unresponsive roommate.

Then they mentioned seeing a man in the house the night before.

Take a listen to that moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SURVIVING ROOMMATE: Can I just tell you what happened pretty much?

DISPATCHER: What is going on currently? Is someone passed out right now?

SURVIVING ROOMMATE: I don't really know, but pretty much at 4:00 a.m. --

DISPATCHER: OK. I need to know what's going on right now, if someone has passed out. Can you find that out?

SURVIVING ROOMMATE: Yes. I'll come -- come on. Let's go check. But we have to,

She's passed out. What's wrong? She's not waking up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JONES: That harrowing moment there from court filings. We did know that the surviving roommates had been texting each other about that man inside the house. Messages sent nearly eight hours earlier, around the time investigators now believe the murders we're taking place.

Yet, that 911 call we just listened to wasn't done until nearly noon the following day.

Prosecutors are saying that this call, along with those messages, will help establish a timeline they will present at the trial.

The defense, however, may argue that the delay and the chaotic nature of that call could raise questions about what the surviving roommates understood at the time.

Bryan Kohberger, the 30-year-old accused in these murders, is set to go to trial in August. He has pleaded not guilty and could face the death penalty if convicted -- Jessica?

[17:45:08] DEAN: And, Julia, what more do we know about -- about Kohberger and his case? I know you mentioned that he will be facing the death penalty.

JONES: Yes. So this trial is set for August. He pleaded not guilty to those four murder charges. And we do know that he was a graduate student, I believe, in criminology at the time.

You know, we are going to see, Jessica, what comes from this murder. There's so much here. And so much of the families listening to this call as well, asking for just understanding that this is not a finger pointing time. They just want justice -- justice to be brought against Kohberger at this time.

DEAN: All right. Julia Vargas Jones, thank you so much for your reporting.

And still ahead, how the Trump administration wants to tighten its efforts to crack down on pro-Palestinian protests at colleges, as some schools try to fight back in the courts and beyond?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:50:41]

DEAN: Tonight, pro-Palestinian activist, Mahmoud Khalil, remains in ICE custody in Louisiana a week after his green card was revoked and he was arrested for his role at the protests at Columbia University last year.

New video shows the moment that -- that he was arrested by federal agents.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAHMOUD KHALIL, PRO-PALESTINIAN ACTIVIST: What? You're going to be under arrest.

UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: So turn around, turn around, turn around, turn around, turn around.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. He's not resisting. He's not resisting. OK. OK. He's giving me his phone. OK.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's not -- I understand. He's not resisting.

UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: We are --

(CROSSTALK)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: This, as the Justice Department ramps up efforts to deport foreigners who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia last year and goes after the university itself.

CNN's Gloria Pazmino is joining us now with more on this.

So, Gloria, let's start first with what the Trump administration is saying about these investigations.

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jessica, we've learned over the past week that at least 45 private and public universities are being targeted for investigations for a range of different issues, including the types of race-based scholarships that they have provided to students.

And we also know that the Trump administration is looking into students who have been participating in these protests, not just last year, but also recently.

Also today, we are hearing from Khalil's attorneys who filed a motion for his release overnight.

They are asking the court to release him, arguing that his First Amendment rights, his due process rights have all been violated and they want him released and for the court to determine that the government's actions have been unconstitutional.

We are also hearing in the past few hours from Khalil's wife, in a declaration that she filed to the court in support of this motion for her husband to be released.

You hear her voice there in that video. She is the one who recorded it when he was being arrested last weekend by federal immigration officers at their home.

We've learned that she is eight months pregnant. She is a citizen of the United States. And this is one of the first times that we are hearing directly from her, at least as she tries to speak to the court.

She says in part, quote, "Since his arrest, I have neither been able to sleep nor eat. I can feel my baby and I hope that he is OK. But I know that this stress and all that comes with it is not good for him."

We know that Khalil and his wife are due to have a boy. She is in her eighth month of pregnancy.

She also talks to the court about all of the financial struggle that is sure to come as a result of Khalil being in custody. He was supposed to be taking a job in the next few months.

So all of this as they make a case for him to be released.

We are also hearing from his attorneys, who are continuing to say that they believe all of this is happening purely because the government is trying to target Khalil for his political speech.

And the way that the government is trying to do this is by relying on the INA, a section of U.S. law that talks about the powers that the secretary of state has to determine if a person has an adverse sort of -- can have an adverse role in the foreign policy of the United States.

Take a listen to his attorneys.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAMZI KASSEM, ATTORNEY FOR MAHMOUD KHALIL: So it's extremely vague. It's been very rarely used. And it certainly has never been used to punish speech. That was not the intention behind Congress when -- when it -- when it when it made this law.

And so again, that just brings us back to the fundamental fact that the government here is very transparently retaliating against Mr. Khalil for his exercise of his First Amendment rights.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAZMINO: Now, while Khalil remains in custody, we've also learned from immigration officials that two more students have been targeted.

One of them was arrested regarding violations of their student visa and a separate Columbia student has allegedly -- has self-deported back to Canada. That is according to immigration officials.

Both of them are believed to have participated in last year's protests -- Jessica?

DEAN: All right. Gloria Pazmino, thank you very much.

Tomorrow night, a new episode of the CNN original series "TWITTER: BREAKING THE BIRD." This week's episode takes us back through Twitter's explosion into a force of global influence.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[17:55:07]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I came into work one morning. I get to the office, I'm sweating, I backpack, I walked all the way. And Jason Goldman says, Ebb's downstairs waiting for you in his car. And I was like, what are you talking about?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And Ebb had his Porsche. So I got in and I was like, so Goldman says we're going somewhere. Where are we going? He was like, we're going to talk to Mark Zuckerberg.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mark was interested in acquiring Twitter. So like biz, we're going to Palo Alto.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And this is the first time I'm hearing about any of this. So I was like, OK, if he says, like, what's the number, like, what do you guys want, we just say something so outlandishly ridiculous.

And I started, like, laughing before I could even say it, because I made up the biggest number I could think of, $500 million.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: "TWITTER: BREAKING THE BIRD," a new episode airing Sunday night at 10:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific right here on CNN.

We've got more for you when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)