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Families of the Deported in the U.S. Desperately Hunt for Answers; U.S. Defense Secretary Hosts Elon Musk at Pentagon; Boxing Heavyweight Great George Foreman Dead at 76; Democrats at Town Halls Demand Stronger Resistance; Hamas Considers Latest U.S. Ceasefire Plan for Gaza; "Merchant of Death" Viktor Bout Lavishing Praise on Trump; U.S. Importing Eggs from Turkiye and South Korea to Lower Prices. Aired 5-6a ET
Aired March 22, 2025 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Well, welcome to all of you watching us here in the United States, Canada and all around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber. This is CNN NEWSROOM.
A tense day in court as a district judge demands more evidence from the Justice Department. What president Donald Trump has to say about his administration's use of a wartime authority to deport migrants.
London's Heathrow Airport is open again but the travel chaos continues. Why some people could feel the impacts of the power outage for days to come.
Plus, the boxing world is in mourning after legendary boxer George Foreman's death. We'll take a look at his legacy in and out of the ring.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from Atlanta, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Kim Brunhuber.
BRUNHUBER: We begin with U.S. president Donald Trump revoking security clearances for more than a dozen of his political rivals. That includes former Vice President Kamala Harris, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and some members of the January 6th committee and Joe Biden's family.
In a late night memo yesterday, president Trump said it is no longer in the national interest for them to access classified information, adding, quote, "I hereby direct every executive department and agency head to take all additional action as necessary.
"And, consistent with existing law, to revoke any active security clearances held by the aforementioned individuals."
Donald Trump is facing a new hurdle in his effort to carry out mass deportations in the United States. A federal judge says the administration, using a 1798 wartime law, is awfully frightening. The Justice Department used the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan migrants last weekend, who it claimed were gang members.
But Judge James Boasberg ordered them not to do that. During a hearing on Friday, the judge said, quote, "I will get to the bottom of whether they violated my order, who ordered this and what the consequences will be."
The judge also said the proclamation invoking the 18th century law was, quote, "signed in the dark of night." But president Trump says he didn't sign the document and that the operation belongs to secretary of state Marco Rubio. Here is.
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TRUMP: I would say that I'd have the secretary of state handle it, because I'm not really involved in that. But the concept of getting a bad people murderers, rapists, drug dealers, all of the these are really some bad people out of our country. I ran on that. I won on that.
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BRUNHUBER: The acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says that the agency and its local partners have arrested nearly 400 alleged Venezuelan gang members since president Trump took office. CNN's Priscilla Alvarez spoke to some of their families, who are on a desperate search for answers.
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PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Yurli (ph) has been searching for her brother. She is one of several Venezuelan families whose relatives have disappeared.
They were subject to a sweeping wartime authority that allowed their swift removal from the United States. All accused of having ties to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. Their tattoos appearing to factor into that determination.
She says he's not a criminal. Yurli's brother, Jhon, arrived in the United States last October after securing an appointment to request asylum, where he was later detained.
Yan is a tattoo artist with tattoos of his own but she says he has no criminal record or ties to the gang. The Department of Homeland Security did not provide CNN the basis for his deportation despite multiple requests.
YURLIANA CHACIN, SISTER OF VENEZUELAN DEPORTED TO EL SALVADOR (through translator): He was asked at that time about the tattoos and if he was associated with the gang.
ALVAREZ (voice-over): While in detention, Jhon called his sister often, sometimes multiple times a day, to check in. ALVAREZ: Every morning, she says, she would sign on to this app, including in the evenings or whenever she got a notification, so that she could talk to her brother, who was in detention.
ALVAREZ (voice-over): In early March, he was moved to a facility in Texas. He had become more anxious, his sister says and believed he might be deported to Venezuela. Then he vanished.
On Sunday, Yurli learned planes had arrived in El Salvador carrying migrants and had a lingering suspicion he might be one of them. As videos and photos released by the Salvadoran emerged, Yurli spotted a photo on the news.
She felt confident it was her brother.
ALVAREZ: So she sent this photo to her family because she could see the arrow -- she put the arrow to send it to them and say, this could be our brother. She noticed his hair was cut.
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ALVAREZ (voice-over): She needed confirmation. Then finally, a call with the Department of Homeland Security confirmed her worst nightmare. Her brother had been sent to a notorious mega prison in El Salvador.
ALVAREZ: I am with his sister. Where was he removed?
ALVAREZ (voice-over): It was the answer she was desperately seeking but also feared. El Salvador Center for Terrorism Confinement, known as CECOT, is the largest prison in the America's and is infamous for its harsh conditions. Her brother, like other migrants, is now in Salvadoran custody, raising questions about what happens to them next.
Trump officials have maintained that those sent to CECOT were, quote, "carefully vetted," but also conceded that many of those removed did not have criminal records in the United States.
ALVAREZ: The United States has given you some opportunity, as you've described but also it's the U.S. government that sent him to El Salvador.
CHACIN (through translator): I just think it's their laws. But you can't judge, imprison or jail an innocent person based on your laws. They had to investigate thoroughly.
ALVAREZ (voice-over): Yurli now has some answers but also plenty of questions, among them, how and if she'll ever get her brother back.
ALVAREZ: Yurli's story is in many ways similar to that of other Venezuelan families, who say their loved ones who were in the U.S. immigration detention system simply vanished, only to be spotted in handout videos by the Salvadoran government.
Now the U.S. government has not released the names and identities of those who they sent to El Salvador. That is still part of an ongoing court case. But these families and these attorneys say that those who were sent
may not have any legal recourse or at least it's very unclear, now that they are in the custody of another country, not the United States and not their country of origin. U.S. officials telling me that El Salvador will decide what happens next.
And that is what has become so terrifying for the family members and the immigration attorneys representing some of these men, who say they had no ties to Tren de Aragua and believe that they were ultimately targeted for their tattoos -- Priscilla Alvarez, CNN, Washington.
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BRUNHUBER: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced new mass firings on Friday. The agency is gutting offices that focus on oversight of civil rights violations, citizenship services and immigration detention.
The DHS says those offices obstructed its crackdown on immigration. The cuts come amid concerns that the administration's deportation efforts threaten civil liberties.
All right, now to Elon Musk, the man in charge of slashing U.S. government costs and staffing. Visiting the Pentagon on Friday, he met with the Defense Secretary for more than an hour.
Pete Hegseth called the meeting, "fantastic," without elaborating on what was said.
But "The New York Times" story about the meeting relating to China had the president and the White House defending his visit. President Trump rejected reports that Musk was being briefed on U.S. military plans for a potential war with China. Here he is.
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TRUMP: We don't want to have a potential war with China but I can tell you, if we did, we're very well equipped to handle it. But I don't want to show that to anybody. But certainly you wouldn't show it to a businessman who is helping us so much. You know, Elon has businesses in China and he would be susceptible, perhaps, to that.
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BRUNHUBER: Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office Friday, Trump also announced the Pentagon will move forward with a next generation fighter jet. He says the F-47 will be built by Boeing, adding that nothing in the world comes even close to it. An experimental version of the jet has been flying for almost five years.
CNN's Oren Liebermann has more now on Elon Musk's Pentagon visit.
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OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Elon Musk was in the Pentagon on Friday for just under 90 minutes. He showed up just before 9:00 in the morning and was out right around 10:20.
"The New York Times" reported that he was there to receive what would be a highly classified briefing about U.S. war plans in the event of a war with China. But there was a vociferous pushback on that from the White House and from the Defense Department itself, who called the reporting essentially false and saying that's not why he was there.
There was a crowd as Musk arrived outside of the Tang (ph). That is the room in which there are highly classified briefings or sensitive briefings with members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff went into that room. The chief of staff, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth went into that room. But Musk ultimately did not. Instead, he went right upstairs, pretty much, and sat down and talked to Hegseth for most of that hour and 20 minutes that he was in the building or so.
When he came out, we asked him, how was the meeting?
He effectively said it was it was a good meeting and that he's been here before. He wouldn't answer questions on what it was about, what was the reasoning for him being there.
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But as he walked out, he shook hands with the Defense Secretary and said that he should reach out if Musk can ever help him with anything.
Later, as president Donald Trump announced a new U.S. fighter jet program, Trump was asked about it. He said, when he initially saw the reporting, he reached out to his Defense Secretary and asked him, is this why Musk is coming to the Pentagon?
And he says he was told that, no, Musk is there for DOGE, not for China.
So we're seeing this again, this pushback effectively from just about every part of the administration on the question of whether Musk was visiting the Pentagon for a briefing on China.
Now, of course, Musk himself has business interests in China, that through SpaceX, Starlink, Tesla. And that's part of what Trump pointed out, that there would be conflicts of interest here, that Musk has business interests in China, acknowledging the existence of those links.
And Trump said that's not the sort of person that should have the information that is incredibly sensitive on what war plans might look like -- Oren Liebermann, CNN, in Washington.
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BRUNHUBER: One of the world's busiest airports, is getting back to normal, with many flights resuming. That's after a fire and a power outage brought Heathrow in London to a complete standstill on Friday. Now it's currently just after 9:00 in the morning in London and flights have been coming and going for a few hours now.
Heathrow's CEO said he expected the airport to be back to full normal operations today. Friday's electrical blackout disrupted global travel, throwing more than 1,000 flights into disarray and disrupting plans for tens of thousands of passengers. CNN's Larry Madowo is at Heathrow right now.
So Larry, the fire has been contained. The planes are flying again. But the effects, I understand, are far from over.
LARRY MADOWO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. It's been a busy three hours here at Heathrow. Flights started flying, coming in and leaving, the last few hours. I see -- actually this lot, Polish Airlines up there coming in.
I think that's Austrian Airlines leaving. There's so much activity over London today, which is new, because that didn't happen yesterday. Europe's busiest airport shut down for 18 hours. It will take a few days to get everybody back on track.
So schedules are still all over the place. Heathrow is advising passengers who have flights coming into Heathrow or leaving to check with your airline. The simple reason is that the planes, pilots and crew are not where they should be. They were diverted to airports all across the U.K. and to Europe.
Some of them didn't take off from their origin, so that's going to take some time until everybody is accounted for and they can get them on their way.
So even though the airport is now fully operational, operating at 100 percent capacity, airlines will take some time to figure out how to get everybody where they need to be. For instance, British Airways expects 85 percent capacity today and lots of other airlines will be doing the same.
The question is, how did this happen?
Heathrow is the U.K.'s -- part of the U.K.'s critical national infrastructure and yet it was taken out for 18 hours after a fire at a substation that affects the airport. They have contingency plans but they did not work effectively.
Even though the CEO says they worked as well as they should have, they just had to shut down everything, test them before bringing them back on. But for passengers who are inconvenienced, who couldn't, who missed important life moments, this was their view.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My mom's birthday is tomorrow.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. And so it's missing, that's kind of going to be a pity. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So we're engaged and we've had just horrible
travel luck, it seems, our whole relationship. So I don't know, we've had a hurricane out of season. You've gotten very sick.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Twice on one trip.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, interesting taxi drivers and Airbnbs and -- yes.
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MADOWO: So can they get compensation?
The answer is yes and no. If your credit card you booked it with offers compensation, maybe you should check with them or your travel insurance. But because this was not caused by the airlines, they're not necessarily responsible for compensating you.
The British prime minister says he will be asking questions of the Heathrow leadership about what exactly happened here. The British utility company national grid has said it's deeply sorry for the disruption caused by the fire. It's working closely with the government, with Heathrow and with the police to figure out what happened.
And authorities are investigating the cause of the fire. They're not treating it as suspicious at this stage but they're keeping an open mind. Kim.
BRUNHUBER: So much chaos and so many questions, as you say. Larry Madowo at Heathrow Airport in London, thanks so much.
All right. Still ahead, an American boxing legend has died. We'll bring you more on the passing of George Foreman next.
Plus, U.S. voter discontent is getting louder at town halls with lawmakers. We'll have those stories and more when we come back. Please stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: Boxing legend George Foreman died peacefully at the age of 76, according to a social media account. CNN's Stephanie Elam has more on the man called one of the most powerful punchers in the sport.
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STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When you hear the name George Foreman, electric grilling may pop into mind. GEORGE FOREMAN, TWO-TIME BOXING HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION AND BUSINESSMAN: Get ready to cook some burgers on the George Foreman family size grill.
ELAM (voice-over): But the affable pitchman was once one of the most feared heavyweight fighters in the world.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: George Foreman, 257 pounds.
MIKE TYSON, FORMER HEAVYWEIGHT BOXING CHAMPION: Watching him box on when he was younger and stuff, he did a big ring galoot and stuff. And, that's how, like, I he was like the Mike Tyson before Mike Tyson.
FOREMAN (voice-over): One punch of mine was equal to 20 of any other heavyweight champ.
ELAM (voice-over): Foreman's awesome punching power won him 76 matches in his career, 20 more than perhaps his fiercest competitor, Muhammad Ali.
A rebellious teenage Foreman was introduced to boxing by legendary trainer Doc Broadus in 1966. Broadus encouraged the Houston native to use the sport as a way to avoid gang life in the streets. It worked.
And by 1968, he won a gold medal for the U.S. Olympic team. The next year, he turned pro. Foreman won his first 37 professional fights, earning a shot at the heavyweight title against Smokin' Joe Frazier in 1973. Although considered the underdog, Foreman won by technical knockout in less than two rounds.
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Then there was October 30th, 1974, the Rumble in the Jungle. The fight in Central Africa capitalized on the assumed beef between Foreman and Muhammad Ali, which Foreman says was far from the truth.
FOREMAN: We never had any face-to-face confrontation. It was -- when I met him in the ring, that was as close as we had gotten. I heard that on the news he called me the Frankenstein monster but he was only saying that because it was true.
ELAM (voice-over): It was one of the most watched live TV events of all time and the world had a front row seat to the only knockout defeat of George Foreman.
FOREMAN: I felt like he threw maybe 150. I still feel those punches. I just underestimated one of the greatest fighters of all time.
ELAM (voice-over): Foreman made several attempts to regain the title and came up empty. With his back on the ropes, he would later say he had spiritual awakening and ultimately became an ordained minister.
But the man of the cloth didn't completely throw in the boxing towel. In 1994, a then 45-year-old Foreman defeated a 26-year old to reclaim the heavyweight champion belt. He held on to it for three years, hanging up his gloves after losing his title to Shannon Briggs. In retirement, the man with the iron fist reemerged as the man with
the electric grill, the Foreman Grill.
FOREMAN: We sold first 5,000, 10,000, 500,000. And one day, we looked up to this day over 100 million.
ELAM (voice-over): His Lean, Mean Grilling Machine reportedly netted him hundreds of millions of dollars. Along the way, the man affectionately known as "Big George" wrote a few books, starred in several movies and television series and showed the world, with the right combination, you can win anything.
FOREMAN: And I talk to young kids all the time. They want to be famous in sports. Love what you're doing but understand that athletics is just a small part of your life. Do other things, too. You can be heavyweight champion for the world. But there's more to it than that.
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BRUNHUBER: The FBI is asking Americans to help as it investigates attacks targeting Teslas. Coming up, what president Trump has to say about anyone who could be behind the attacks.
And Democrats are demanding their representatives do more to resist Donald Trump's policies. We'll take a look at the tense exchanges. That's all coming up. Stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER (voice-over): Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Kim Brunhuber. Let's check today's top stories.
U.S. President Donald Trump has revoked the security clearance for former lawmakers and political enemies; among them, former Vice President Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton and members of the January 6th investigative committee.
The late-night memo directed the immediate revocation of access to classified information, including the president's daily brief and other classified briefings.
A U.S. district judge is demanding that the Department of Justice's attorneys show proof that two deportation flights to El Salvador didn't violate his order preventing the use of a wartime deportation authority. The judge says the DOJ must submit that evidence by Tuesday.
It happened during a tense hearing on Friday, where the judge raised questions about the legality of the flights. The Pentagon welcomed billionaire defense contractor Elon Musk on
Friday, despite concerns over "The New York Times" reporting that indicated Musk would be involved in a classified briefing.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth met with Musk in his office Friday morning. It's not clear what the two discussed and whether it involved any classified information about plans for a potential conflict with China. President Trump says Musk wasn't briefed on any such plans.
BRUNHUBER: The FBI is warning Americans to preemptively be on the lookout for planned attacks on Tesla vehicles and facilities. The law enforcement agency released a public alert focused on the violence targeting Teslas Friday.
It said the incidents concerning the electric vehicles have occurred in at least nine states since January and involved arson, gunfire and vandalism. On Friday, U.S. president Donald Trump compared the Tesla targeted attacks to the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021. Here he is.
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TRUMP: These are terrorists. You didn't have that on January 6th, I can tell you. You didn't have anything like that on January 6th, which is sort of amazing, because on January 6th, the Democrats were talking, nobody was killed other than a very beautiful young woman, Ashli, Ashli Babbitt.
Nobody was killed. And you look at what's going on now with these terrorists. These are terrorists and that's an organized event.
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BRUNHUBER: The FBI is urging anyone with information about the Tesla incidents to contact law enforcement.
Democratic lawmakers are facing eruptions of anger at town hall meetings throughout the United States. Fear and fury over president Donald Trump's policies is combining with frustration over what constituency is ineffective, even weak responses from their party's representatives. Listen to this.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need to find out what Elon Musk is doing and how we can stop it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When it comes to fighting these fights, we need you to be a little bit less polite, a little bit more, hell, no.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How is it that it's OK to attack myself and my coworkers and my veterans?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What do we do in the meantime to survive this dismantling of the government?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was proud to vote recently for the House budget resolution, which provides the framework --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is where we're at.
When are you going to stand up?
And we're also on the Human Rights Watch list.
What are you going to stand up for?
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BRUNHUBER: Now the criticism comes as Republicans control every branch of the federal government. And with no clear Democratic leader, deep divisions have emerged along lines of ideology and tactics.
Meanwhile, independent Senator Bernie Sanders is drawing large crowds, like this one, at rallies around the country, some in districts that Republicans won. And he's sending a message to president Trump.
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SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): We're not going to allow you and your friend, Mr. Musk, and the other billionaires to wreak havoc on the working families of this country.
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BRUNHUBER: All right. We're joined live now by Thomas Gift, director of the Centre on U.S. Politics at University College London.
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Good to see you again. So you can, in these town halls, sense the anger there and the numbers bear it out. A recent CNN poll found the Democratic Party hit a record low approval rating; the lowest, actually, since we started polling in 1992.
Why do you think so many people feel the Democratic Party is struggling right now?
THOMAS GIFT, DIRECTOR, CENTRE ON U.S. POLITICS, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON: Well, thanks so much for having me, Kim. It's great to be with you.
That number is really striking, 29 percent, an all-time low. I think some Democratic angst is just a feeling of futility. It's anger about policy. It's anger about the direction in which Trump is taking the country. But I think more so it's anger about the inability of Democrats themselves to do anything about it.
We saw that during Trump's speech before a joint session of Congress, where Democrats really didn't put forward a united front. We saw it with the recent spending bill, when Chuck Schumer broke with progressives to keep the government open.
You know, Democratic voters, I think, largely right now, view the Democratic Party as feckless, as weak and as losing. And it's hard to dispute that when Republicans have control of all three branches of the federal government.
BRUNHUBER: Well, that's exactly it. I mean, the recurring theme we hear from voters -- and you hear it time and time again -- is basically you've got to fight harder.
But beyond rhetoric, I mean, what does that actually mean if, as you say, the other party controls the presidency and Congress?
GIFT: No, absolutely. Kim, I think fighting harder is just rhetorical unless it's backed with action. Some pushback can come from states and localities but I think largely what Democratic voters are looking for is a common message, even if they can't do much concretely at the moment.
It seems like half the party wants full-on resistance to Trump; half wants compromise. And coming out of November's election, the autopsy reports haven't really moved the party in a consistent direction.
I think some historical context is useful, though. In 2004, we had a devastating loss for Democrats and then in 2008, Barack Obama ushered in a new era, essentially, of Democratic governance.
So politics does have a way of self-correcting when the party in power over-interprets its mandate. But right now, you can see why the anger is building among Democrats.
BRUNHUBER: Yes, but, I mean, the party doesn't seem as if it has a Barack Obama waiting in the wings. And you talk about sort of a unity of message. The confusing thing is, according to recent Gallup polling, Democrats, they're angry.
But they're split as to whether the party should become more progressive or more moderate. So they want things to change but they can't agree on how.
GIFT: No, absolutely. And I think one thing we shouldn't underestimate, when looking at where the Democrats are, is that they didn't just lose in 2024; they lost to a twice impeached former president, who's probably more polarizing than any other public figure in modern American politics.
I do think, personally, one of the big problems with Democrats isn't policy. It isn't moderates versus progressives. It isn't wokeness. It's kind of an air of self-righteousness.
I think making 2024 about democracy being on the ballot, implying that anyone who doesn't support them is authoritarian, always seeming a bit too moralistic in their intonations.
I think for all of his faults, Trump certainly doesn't have any shame. He's very transactional. He doesn't put on pretenses, like I think we've seen too often with Democrats.
BRUNHUBER: All right. We've been focusing on the Democratic anger but it's not as though Republicans in Congress are getting off scot free. Many Republicans have been so frightened of these angry crowds that they've actually stopped holding town halls.
Or like Republican senator Chuck Grassley -- we will play this clip -- they face irate constituents, like this one.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're now seeing that we don't want people to call on the phone to change their direct deposit. Go to a local office. Try to get an appointment at a local office. Right now, you're waiting a month.
And we're going to cut more staff?
This is not right. If any -- and we do not want to see Social Security privatized.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: And, of course, it doesn't help when the billionaire Commerce Secretary suggested in an interview that seniors shouldn't complain if they miss a Social Security check.
Now it seems, at least looking at the Republican town halls that we're seeing, even some Republican voters feel the Trump administration is out of touch, especially when it comes to these DOGE cuts.
GIFT: I think you're definitely right, Kim. It's notable that Republicans have urged lawmakers to host livestreamed or call-in events rather than these in-person town halls, because we've seen the backlash. You know, Republicans blame Democratic activists as being agitators.
But I think some of this discontent is certainly coming from Trump voters. Republican frustration really underscores the disconnect between their abstract support for government spending cuts and their actual response to its practical implications. I think Republicans like the optics of Elon Musk taking out his chain saw to government.
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That enthusiasm certainly fades when specific programs are on the chopping block. And, of course, that resistance is greater when it bears on voters' own livelihoods, not when it's cutting somebody else's benefits or entitlements.
BRUNHUBER: Yes, it seems as if there's certainly a lot of volatility on both ends; bipartisan, if you will. Thomas Gift in London, thank you so much. Really appreciate your time again.
GIFT: Thanks, Kim.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: All right. President Trump has a strong supporter in Russia, who spent about 10 years in U.S. prison. Still ahead, why a convicted arms dealer believes Trump is putting the country on the right track. Stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER (voice-over): Mass protests continued in several cities across Turkiye on Friday over the government detention of Istanbul's mayor. Thousands of protesters have been taking to the streets and defying a ban on public gatherings. In some cities, it has led to clashes with police.
Protesters are demanding the government release Istanbul's mayor, a key opposition rival to Turkiye's president. Authorities detained Ekrem Imamoglu on Wednesday as part of an investigation into corruption and terrorism.
Israel is firing tank and artillery shells at villages in southeastern Lebanon. That's according to Lebanese state media. This comes after Israel's military says it intercepted three projectiles fired from Lebanon early Saturday, the first such incident in more than three months.
They say two other projectiles fell back into Lebanese territory. No casualties or damage has been immediately reported.
Meantime, the Israeli defense minister is warning Hamas, let the hostages go or Israel will keep a permanent presence in parts of Gaza. Israel is escalating a new offensive in Gaza after a fragile ceasefire collapsed on Tuesday. Since then, Israeli strikes on the enclave have reportedly killed hundreds of people.
And now it appears the Israeli military is looking to expand ground operations.
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For its part, Hamas says it's considering the latest U.S. ceasefire plan for Gaza and remains fully engaged in the mediation process.
We're starting to get an idea of what the upcoming Ukraine ceasefire talks in Saudi Arabia will look like. U.S. officials say the American delegation will first sit down with the Ukrainians on Monday before speaking with Russians.
The two sides will be in separate rooms, with U.S. officials shuttling between them. The goal is to fill in the details about a pause in attacks on energy targets, which both sides have agreed to, and to try to achieve a ceasefire in the Black Sea. The U.S. president says he's confident the process will work.
But a ceasefire is still a pipe dream in Ukraine, where at least five people were killed in Russian strikes across the country on Friday. Officials say they include a father and his teenage daughter, who died after a barrage of drones hit the city of Zaporizhzhya.
In the last hour, I spoke with Malcolm Davis, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, and I asked him if the U.S. president's promise to reach a ceasefire soon, which he made on Friday, is realistic. Here he is.
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MALCOLM DAVIS, SENIOR ANALYST, AUSTRALIAN STRATEGIC POLICY INSTITUTE: I think what you're going to see is the Russians continue to string this out and play Trump for as long as possible.
Whilst they continue to attack the Ukrainians with very heavy strikes, like they did against Odessa and Zaporizhzhya and other areas of Ukraine over the last few days. They want to make as many gains on the ground as they possibly can before they even begin to negotiate seriously about a ceasefire.
And then what they will do is continue to add preconditions to those negotiations, because they believe that the Trump administration will give them what they want. So I don't really see a ceasefire anytime soon.
And if the ceasefire does actually happen, it won't necessarily mean a stable and enduring peace. It will just be a peace in our time agreement that gives the Russians time to recover and rearm and regroup, to launch the war again.
BRUNHUBER: Yes.
So you think Putin is basically stringing president Trump along here.
As details of a partial ceasefire are worked out, senior military officers from more than 30 countries met in England this week to flesh out plans for an international peacekeeping force, to guard in Ukraine and this sort of sort of coalition of the willing led by Britain and France.
Those are the only two countries so far that have agreed to send troops. Russia won't accept NATO countries on Ukrainian soil. Now an alternative, I guess, would be U.N. troops. But here's what President Zelenskyy had to say about that. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ZELENSKYY (through translator): Regarding the U.N., with all due respect, the U.N. will not protect us from the occupation or Putin's desire to come back. We don't see the U.N. as an alternative for the military contingent or security guarantees.
(END VIDEO CLIP) BRUNHUBER: So if this so-called reassurance force can't be NATO troops or U.N. troops, I mean, what's the alternative?
DAVIS: Well, firstly, we shouldn't allow Putin to have a veto over what the members of that peacekeeping force should be, if it's NATO or if it's E.U. That's what the force will be. And I think that we need to be strong enough in terms of how the Europeans are managing this, even if it's without the Americans behind them.
To make it clear that Europe will not be dictated to by Putin as to what they can and cannot do. I think Zelenskyy is right on the U.N. I think a U.N. force would be hopelessly weak and more than likely it would ally itself with -- or be, shall we say, sympathetic to Russia.
So I do think that Zelenskyy has a genuine and legitimate concern about a U.N. force. And I think what Europe needs to do is bring a force together that is strong enough to go in, support peace in terms of being neutral peacekeepers.
But that also does demand that the peacekeepers, if Russia does test that peace, the peacekeepers can actually respond effectively. You can't have a situation where a peacekeeping force goes in and then withdraws immediately the Russians challenge that peace agreement.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: Trump is getting praise from a Russian arms dealer, who spent more than a decade behind bars here in the U.S. Viktor Bout was exchanged for U.S. pro basketball player Brittney Griner in a prisoner swap in 2022. Bout spoke with CNN's Fred Pleitgen on the sidelines of an event in Moscow.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
VIKTOR BOUT, FORMER RUSSIAN ARMS DEALER: You know who I am.
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I know exactly who you are. That's why I'm asking you.
That's Viktor Bout. He's the former Russian arms dealer who some have called the merchant of death.
Now I bumped into him at a press event here in Moscow and he gave me his take on the Trump administration and its Russia policy. I'll show you that in a minute. But first, here's a quick recap.
Bout served about 10 years in a U.S. jail until he was exchanged for U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner in 2022 and a swap that was overseen by the Biden administration. Now he's a former Soviet military officer and he was actually serving a 25-year sentence on charges that included conspiring to kill Americans.
[05:45:00]
Bout always maintained his innocence of all the charges.
Do you think that Donald Trump understands Russia better than Joe Biden did?
BOUT: I don't think it's a mere factor of understanding. It's Trump representing, you know, the American people who said enough is enough, who won't really change.
That's why he was elected, you know and the Biden administration was just, you know, in bed with all this, you know, neocons, you know, warmongers and the global elites who just tried to stage a World War III.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: Self-proclaimed misogynist, Andrew Tate, and his brother are back in Romania to check in with police. They're facing charges, including human trafficking and forming an organized crime group. They deny all the accusations and say they're there to clear their names.
The Romanians let them go to Florida last month as they await trial, only to find they're now under a criminal investigation in the U.S. state. The brothers are required to check in regularly with Romanian police. Andrew Tate is a U.S. born professional fighter, who gained a huge online following by peddling sexist content about male dominance.
For weeks, Donald Trump has been coveting Canada in what he now calls a "beautiful landmass." Ahead, how Canadians and their new prime minister are resisting the 51st U.S. state call.
Plus, as president Trump sets his sights on Greenland, the island's new international airport is seeing a surge in foreign visitors. Coming up, the latest on this tourism boom in the Arctic.
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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:50:00]
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BRUNHUBER: Donald Trump is digging in on his rhetoric about annexing Canada, now, calling it a, quote, "beautiful landmass." The U.S. president is also denying that adding a so-called 51st state might swell the ranks of Democrats in the U.S.
He even weighed in on Canadian politics, with the country expected to call a general election on Sunday to be held in a few weeks. Here he is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Now is it liberal?
Maybe. But you know, a conservative, until I got involved because I don't care who wins up there. It frankly probably would do better with the liberal than the conservative, if you want to know the truth.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: Mark Carney, Canada's new prime minister and leader of the Liberal Party, has said talks with his counterpart wouldn't happen until Canada is treated with respect. Now he wants to lower trade barriers between provinces as a hedge against lost U.S. business.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK CARNEY, CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER: We are creating a one-window approval process. We are tabling, we are committing to table legislation by the 1st of July for goods to travel across the country, barrier free or free of barriers, of federal barriers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: Polls show most Canadians are furious about talk of becoming a U.S. state. They also show Trump's attacks have helped Carney liberals rise dramatically in public opinion.
Meanwhile, president Trump is also continuing to push his vision of a U.S.-owned Greenland. But with recent strides toward independence, Greenland is looking to leverage its moment in the international spotlight. CNN's Lynda Kinkade has the latest on an influx of foreign tourists visiting the island.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LYNDA KINKADE, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Greenland is seeing green, thanks to an influx of U.S. dollars. President Donald Trump's attention and a new airport has led to a surge in visitors.
LARS IPLAND, DENMARK RESIDENT: It was one of the last parts of the world I haven't seen, actually, so it was on my bucket list. So that's why I want to come here.
KINKADE (voice-over): The new international airport in the capital, Nuuk, is making it easier than ever to explore one of the world's most remote yet captivating destinations. And it's only going to get easier, with major airlines offering direct flights this summer.
JENS LAURIDSEN, CEO, GREENLAND AIRPORTS: And what we're seeing already this summer here in Nuuk is quite a significant increase, both in the number of operators -- we will have SAS coming in, we have United Airlines coming in, we have Air Greenland increasing their -- the number of aircraft significantly. And the same with Icelandair.
So we will see quite a significant growth this summer already.
KINKADE (voice-over): While the new airport has been a major boost, there's no question the political spotlight is adding more fuel to Greenland's tourism rise.
In January, Donald Trump Jr. visited Nuuk's new airport, drawing attention to his father's interest in making the island part of the United States.
President Trump, highlighting what he calls the need for the island in his address to Congress this month.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We need Greenland for national security and even international security and we're working with everybody involved to try and get it. But we need it really for international world security. And I think we're going to get it. One way or the other we're going to get it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KINKADE (voice-over): Last week, Greenland, which is a self-governing territory of Denmark, held an election, in which all the major parties agreed on independence from Denmark and, if necessary, the United States.
So while the U.S. pursuit of Greenland remains a hot button topic, one thing is clear: the island is already reaping the benefits of its newfound global attention.
IVIK KNUDSEN-OSTERMANN, CEO, GREENLAND CRUISES: We are getting much more bookings than that -- that we have received earlier, especially because of a man with the last name of Trump, has really put Greenland on the map once again.
KINKADE (voice-over): Whether by air, land or sea, statistics are backing that more and more people are checking Greenland off their bucket list. Statistics Greenland reporting a 14 percent increase year on year in visitors for the month of January.
And while a potential U.S. takeover of Greenland is very much still up in the air, more and more U.S. tourists are hitting the ground -- Lynda Kinkade, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: The White House believes it may have a solution to high egg prices. They're importing eggs from other countries. On Friday, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins says the U.S. is importing eggs from Turkiye and South Korea. And officials are in talks to import them from other countries.
[05:55:00]
Rollins says he believes the move will help bring down the cost of eggs here in the U.S. in the short term. The administration's long term plan includes preventing the spread of avian flu among agricultural poultry populations.
Well, U.S. markets managed to end the week slightly higher. The Dow, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq composite all edged up and an end of day rally helped the S&P and the Nasdaq break a four week losing streak.
Meanwhile, a new Bank of America survey finds that Wall Street has seen the biggest drop in allocation to U.S. stocks since record keeping began in 1999, with global traders moving to cash and gold or investing in markets in Europe and Asia. And finally, two of Hong Kong's beloved panda cubs were reunited with
their mother at Ocean Park Friday. The cubs, known as Elder Sister and Little Brother, interacted with their mom, Ying Ying, inside an enclosure after spending days under careful observation and training.
Officials say the pandas have successfully adapted to their new environment. And on Saturday, Mom and their twins will greet park visitors together from the exhibit area for the first time.
Beautiful.
All right. That wraps this hour of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Kim Brunhuber. For viewers here in the U.S. and Canada, "CNN THIS MORNING" is next. For the rest of the world, It's "AFRICAN VOICES: CHANGEMAKERS"
