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Judge Orders DHS to Stop Arrests without Probable Cause; Venezuelans Call on U.S. to Reunite Separated Families; Criticism Growing over Spotty Alerts for Texas Floods; Fuel Cut to Engines ahead of Air India Crash; Kremlin Awaits "Major Statement" from Trump; Mahmoud Khalil Describes Conditions in ICE Detention Center; Bad Bunny Begins Two-Month Artist Residency in Puerto Rico. Aired 5-6a ET
Aired July 12, 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): Welcome to all of you watching us around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber. This is CNN NEWSROOM.
A federal court judge deals a major setback to president Trump's deportation agenda. We'll have details.
Plus, a look at a clash between protesters and ICE officers that turned violent.
And the president seemingly unwilling to tolerate criticism of the government's response to deadly floods. What he saw during his visit to central Texas.
Plus more questions than answers after an investigation into the Air India plane crash last month. We will break down the report.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from Atlanta, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Kim Brunhuber.
BRUNHUBER: The Trump administration is now on notice that it can't trample on constitutional rights as federal agents sweep the Los Angeles area for undocumented immigrants.
A federal judge in California is ordering ICE to stop detaining people just because they speak Spanish or accented English or they're waiting for a bus stop to get to their job picking fruits and vegetables. She says they must have probable cause and they also must allow arrested immigrants to meet with their lawyers seven days a week.
CNN spoke to attorney Arthur Aidala about the ruling from the U.S. Central District of California.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARTHUR AIDALA, ATTORNEY: So what the judge, I mean, really took the government to task.
We're talking -- I'm quoting, what the federal government would have this court believe, in the face of a mountain of evidence presented in this case, is that none of this is actually happening. None of what you just described is actually happening.
So she basically is calling the government lawyers liars, which, when you're an attorney, is the worst thing that could happen to you. And she's basically saying there needs to be more due process before you can carry out the acts that you're carrying out.
And you can't come and tell me, oh, we're not doing that because this quote-unquote "amount of evidence" that shows that you are doing it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: The FBI is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of an unknown suspect who appeared to open fire on federal law officers in Southern California. Now it happened on Thursday outside a legal cannabis farm, where hundreds of protesters were clashing with federal agents.
The agents were carrying out an immigration raid at the farm. The Department of Homeland Security says approximately 500 protesters were at the raid.
This comes as U.S. president Donald Trump is encouraging ICE and Homeland Security officials to, quote, "use whatever means is necessary" to arrest protesters who throw rocks and other objects at officers. Trump posted the statement on social media. CNN's Veronica Miracle has the latest.
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VERONICA MIRACLE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The Department of Homeland Security is now saying that roughly 200 people were detained during the raids at the marijuana farms. We're also hearing from Customs and Border Patrol that 10 individuals under the age of 18 were discovered at the farms, eight of them unaccompanied minors.
And so this is also turning into a child labor violations case potentially as part of this investigation. Now the fallout has been great. The response from city leaders and activists and protesters has been swift. There was a protest that just ended here moments ago. Here's what one of the speakers had to say.
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ANGELICA SALAS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CHIRLA: We want you to recognize us for the human beings we are, for the members of the community that we have always been. You cannot have our labor.
You cannot have continue to have us serve you, for you to be fed by our hands, for you -- for us to build the buildings that you live in and the homes that you live in. And for you to treat us the way you're treating. So recognize us as the people we are. (END VIDEO CLIP)
MIRACLE: Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass also just signed an executive directive in order to bolster support for immigrants here in the city as well as find legal pathways in order to fight back against the federal government.
She says that this is going to work. That will remain to be seen. And this investigation also continues to unfold.
And the FBI is now saying that an individual, one of the protesters at the raids yesterday, may have fired a gun at officers. And they are offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to his arrest -- Veronica Miracle, CNN, Los Angeles.
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BRUNHUBER: Hundreds of Venezuelans gathered in Caracas, calling on the U.S. government to reunite families who have been torn apart by the U.S. crackdown.
A Venezuelan government official has said women who were arriving in the country after being deported from the U.S. were separated from their sons and daughters.
[05:05:03]
BRUNHUBER: Some Venezuelans are demanding that the United Nations intervene.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We demand the U.N. intervene and bring our grandchildren, our children, our nephews, our godchildren that are kidnapped in the U.S. back.
Once again, the Venezuelan people will be in the streets so that our children come back. They are just up to 12 years old and are kidnapped in the U.S. We demand the U.N. speak up.
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BRUNHUBER: U.S. President Donald Trump surveyed the damage in flood- ravaged central Texas on Friday. The death toll is now 129 and at least 150 people are missing. The president and the first lady met with families affected by the devastating floods in hard hit Kerrville, Texas.
At a meeting with officials, the president praised first responders and community members. The president has frequently talked about downsizing or eliminating FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
But on Friday, he said that there are, quote, "good people running FEMA." President Trump also dismissed criticism over a lack of alerts ahead
of the flooding and he criticized a reporter who asked about it. Here he is.
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QUESTION: Several families we've heard from are obviously upset, because they say that those warnings, those alerts, didn't go out in time. And they also say that people could have been saved.
What do you say to those families?
TRUMP: Well, I think everyone did an incredible job under the circumstances. This was, I guess, Kristi said, a one in 500 -- one in a 1,000 years. And I just have admiration for the job that everybody did. There's just admiration.
The -- only a bad person would ask a question like that, to be honest with you. I don't know who you are. But only a very evil person would ask a question like that.
I think this has been heroism. This has been incredible, really, the job you've all done. It's easy to sit back and say, oh, what could have happened here, there, you know? Maybe we could have done something differently. This was a thing that says, never happened before.
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BRUNHUBER: Texas governor Greg Abbott says more counties are now part of the president's major disaster declaration. That makes them eligible for federal assistance. But there's more bad weather on the way. Meteorologists say severe storms this weekend could cause flash flooding.
Meanwhile, officials are grappling with growing criticism over why residents didn't receive adequate warnings and alerts about last week's impending storm. CNN's Josh Campbell has that part of the story.
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GOV. GREG ABBOTT (R-TX): Who's to blame?
Know this: that's the word choice of losers.
JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Officials in Texas are growing increasingly testy, facing mounting questions about accountability.
LT. COL. BEN BAKER, TEXAS GAME WARDENS: All those questions will be answered. But the priority right now is bringing people home.
CAMPBELL: It's been one week since the usual serene waters of the Guadalupe River in Kerr County, Texas, transformed into a torrent of devastation, killing more than 120 people with at least 160 still missing.
In an ominous warning at 1:14 A.M. on July 4th, the National Weather Service sounded the alarm over life-threatening flash flooding. Did that warning prompt local officials to send text alerts ordering evacuations?
Officials haven't said.
SHERIFF LARRY LEITHA, KERR COUNTY, TEXAS: Sir, it's not that easy that you just push a button, OK?
There's a lot more to that.
CAMPBELL: The first warning of impending disaster, some Texas Hill Country residents received came in the form of rushing water, strange noises from passing debris and the screams of victims.
The deadly Texas flood is not the first time. State government officials have faced scrutiny over their job performance following warnings from the National Weather Service. Before the deadly Los Angeles fires this year, the National Weather Service issued a dire windstorm warning but local officials were faulted by some for not pre-positioning firefighting resources or ordering evacuations.
MARK DOUGLAS, ALTADENA RESIDENT: We felt heat and fire and that trumped any alert. So a lot of us gave up on the alert system at that point.
CAMPBELL: After the recent devastating fires on Maui in 2023, investigators concluded officials didn't do enough to prepare after the National Weather Service, warned of extreme winds. As fire chewed through the island, all 80 emergency sirens in Maui County remained silent.
And in Texas in 2021, an approaching storm prompted the National Weather Service to declare a winter storm warning for every county in the state. Amid the deadly deep freeze, the state's electric grid crashed.
ABBOTT: Texans deserve answers about why these shortfalls occurred.
CAMPBELL: Calls for accountability then but now --
ABBOTT: my focus isn't on trying to say, oh, you did wrong or you should have done better there. My job is to bring Texas and Texans together.
CAMPBELL: As local residents in the Hill Country continue to post tough questions to their elected officials, many are defending the forecasters.
RICK SPINRAD, FORMER NOAA ADMINISTRATOR: The weather service did their job, the watches and warnings went out. Those warnings were not received.
[05:10:00] CAMPBELL: Now with the Hill Country flood, we're talking about a massive wall of water that no one is saying any local official could have stopped. But there are questions about any alerts that went out to those who were in the path of the storm.
To that end, the Kerr County commissioners will be holding their next meeting on Monday. That could be an opportunity for those commissioners to hear directly from residents posing these questions -- Josh Campbell, CNN.
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BRUNHUBER: A month after the Air India crash that killed 260 people, a preliminary report explains why the aircraft fell from the sky just after takeoff on June 12th.
But the explanation raises even more questions. CNN's Richard Quest has details.
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RICHARD QUEST, CNN HOST AND CNN BUSINESS EDITOR AT LARGE: The report is 15 pages long and is called preliminary. But it's pretty definitive about what took place in the cockpit.
Apparently, barely a minute after the plane took off, the fuel cutoff switches were moved from run to cut, thus starving the engines of fuel. You can see from the video of the plane as it starts to climb and then suddenly loses altitude until it crashes into buildings next to the airport.
Why did the pilots cut the fuel?
That's the question that no one knows.
One of the pilots does say to the other, why did you cut off?
And the other pilot says, I didn't cut it. I didn't do so.
And then both switches are put back on to run. But it's too late. By then, the engines have spooled down and they can't reignite in time to create lift.
We may never really know the reason why one of the pilots did switch off the fuel. What we do know is that the switches were moved in both directions and that was the cause of the crash.
Was it deliberate or by accident?
The positioning of the switch in the cockpit is specifically designed so you can't knock it by accident. The way it operates, you pull it out, lift it over and let it go. It's not automatic. It has to be done manually.
So the entire way this operation took place suggests, first, one switch, then the other, then this dialogue between the pilots and then they reverse. They switch the engines back on again. As I said, we may never know why that took place -- Richard Quest, CNN, Bordeaux.
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BRUNHUBER: Earlier, CNN spoke with David Soucie. He's CNN's safety analyst, a former safety inspector for the Federal Aviation Administration and the author of the book, "Malaysia Airlines Flight 370."
He talked about the parts of the report that stood out most to him. Here he is.
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DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: When you flip a switch or you make any change in your parameters, you make that change and then you wait to see what happens before you make another.
So what makes this very suspicious to me is that that first cutoff happened. And less than a second later, the second switch was moved as well. It makes me very suspicious and very curious. I have never seen an accident report like this before.
I've never seen this happen before. And as Richard said, we may never know why that happened. But one of those pilots flipped those switches.
If they do lose an engine, let's say that the left engine went out and there's a fire on board that aircraft. You do your fire extinguishing to try to get the fire out. But you want to cut the fuel off to that engine as quickly as possible so that it doesn't accentuate the burn on that on that wing.
So it's very important to be able to cut the fuel off immediately. And that's why that this control is there. So the fact that it is vulnerable, there's a lot of things in an aircraft that make it vulnerable to the pilot if they have ill intent.
But that's why we go through so much rigorous training on pilots to make sure that they don't have those type of mindsets before they start. But in this case, it has to be that way. But I've never seen that this happen in flight, other than when an engine goes out and then the other engine is mistakenly shut down and then both go out.
But I've never seen anything like this. It's so just unfathomable to me. The design of these switches, the placement of these switches, there are guards in place for them and there are -- you physically have to pull the switch up, move it forward and put it back down.
And the reason it's designed that way is to make sure that you have the intention of doing what you're doing. I don't see there's any kind of design flaw in it. Aircraft across the fleet, not just Boeing but Airbus, all of the aircraft have to have that engine cutoff possibility or capability.
And so I don't see any changes there I really don't. I think this is an isolated incident. [05:15:00]
That doesn't reflect on Boeing or anyone else at this point.
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BRUNHUBER: -- says quote, "You'll be seeing things happening" when it comes to Russia. When we come back, what the Kremlin saying about his upcoming major announcement.
Plus the dangers Palestinians face while getting food in Gaza. We have new information about the staggering death toll among people who are just trying to feed their families. Those stories and more coming up. Stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: U.S. President Donald Trump is teasing a major announcement on Russia that's set for Monday. It comes as Moscow ramps up its assault on Ukraine.
The Kharkiv mayor says a maternity hospital in the city was evacuated after it was hit early Friday. The head doctor told Reuters that the attack damaged the site of the building, where delivery and surgery rooms were located.
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OLEKSANDR LAVYRENKO, FATHER OF NEWBORN (through translator): When the first explosion happened, I ran to the baby. My wife stood up and I moved our son straight away into the corridor. Then there was a second impact, it blew windows off, the glass shattered, so we ran to the shelter.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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BRUNHUBER: So here's how president Trump reacted to the latest round of Russian strikes while speaking to reporters at the White House.
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QUESTION: Russian drones hit a maternity hospital in Ukraine overnight.
TRUMP: I know. You'll be -- you'll be seeing things happening.
(END VIDEO CLIP) BRUNHUBER: The president didn't give any more details on his planned Monday announcement but the Kremlin says it's watching the situation closely.
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DMITRY PESKOV, PUTIN SPOKESPERSON (through translator): We are waiting for the statement itself so that we can understand what president Trump meant. We carefully monitor all the details in the comments of the U.S. leader.
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BRUNHUBER: And joining us live from London is CNN's Nada Bashir.
And Nada, I understand we have new video now of some of those strikes. Take us through what we've seen.
NADA BASHIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. We have been getting new video and information from Ukrainian officials regarding this latest round of overnight strikes. And this, of course, follows a serious ramping-up by Russia of attacks on Ukrainian territory, both missile and drone attacks.
What we've seen overnight, according to Ukrainian officials, is Russia launching more than 20 missiles and hundreds of drone attacks. And fatalities have now been confirmed by the Ukrainian authorities.
And, of course, as I mentioned, we are seeing that ramping-up of Russian attacks on Ukraine intensifying, including just earlier in this week a series of attacks on Kyiv, in the capital, from all directions.
And so, as you can imagine, we are continuing to hear that messaging from the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, for support for Ukraine to be stepped up. And that certainly appears to be what we are seeing now from the United States.
We have heard, of course, from Zelenskyy describing those positive indications that deliveries of weapons and armaments have been sent to Ukraine.
Now we've heard from the U.S. president, Donald Trump, who said that they will be providing support now via the NATO alliance, that NATO will be paying, according to the U.S. president, 100 percent for U.S. weapons, specifically Patriots, to be sent and deployed to Ukraine.
We've also heard from the NATO spokesperson who has acknowledged this deal and this agreement with the United States, describing the situation and the need for greater support for Ukraine.
And the subsequent decision taken by the NATO alliance to procure those weapons from the United States in order to ramp up that support that is being offered by the NATO alliance.
Now, of course, as you mentioned, we are also expecting to see president Trump's Russia-Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, traveling to Ukraine next week.
We've heard from the Ukrainian president saying that the Ukrainian military will be working along the United States with the U.S. envoy and that there will be discussions being held between the two with regards to cooperation between the two nations.
And this, of course, comes as questions continue to mount around the shifts that we are seeing in relations between the U.S. president and, of course, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, as well.
We've heard, of course, from the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, describing discussions they had had with the Russian foreign minister Lavrov, about those "frank" discussions, in his words, and the potential for an alternative perspective on peace, according to Russian officials.
So there will certainly be discussions on that front as well. But again, we are seeing a lot of movement, clearly the U.S. showing indications that it is prepared to start ramping up support for Ukraine.
And, of course, questions over what this may mean for relations between the United States and Russia and whether perhaps we see any movement on that front. President Trump has hinted toward an announcement on Monday over a big decision being taken with regards to those relations with Russia, potentially questions around sanctions.
Of course, Trump has previously said that this is not a simple measure that we are talking about. Hundreds of millions of dollars as well if we are talking about potentially sanctions on Russia or Russian officials.
So again, no clear details on that front from the White House or from the U.S. president. It remains to be seen next week, if we hear any clear announcements from the White House with regards to the fate of those relations between the United States and Russia.
BRUNHUBER: Yes, the world will be watching on Monday. Nada Bashir in London. Thank you so much.
Close to 800 Palestinians have been killed while trying to get food or other aid in Gaza in recent weeks. The U.N. humanitarian office says the vast majority were killed near sites run by the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The U.S.-backed organization says the numbers are false and misleading.
Meanwhile, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is back home after meetings in Washington. President Trump says there's a good chance a ceasefire deal will be reached this week. Israel and Hamas have been negotiating indirectly in Qatar since Sunday. They're discussing a proposed 60-day ceasefire.
A legal setback for president Trump's immigration crackdown. Ahead, the new court ruling that's stopping some immigration arrests.
[05:25:03] Plus, the White House is ramping up pressure on Jerome Powell. We'll have more on Donald Trump's break with the man he nominated to lead the Fed eight years ago. 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.
A preliminary report into the deadly crash of an Air India flight last month has been released. It says the crash happened because the fuel supply switches were flipped, starving the engines of power. The data came back from the plane's black box recorders. The crash left 260 people dead, including some on the ground.
U.S. president Donald Trump and the first lady surveyed the devastation caused by floods in central Texas on Friday. There are 129 confirmed deaths and the search continues for at least 150 people still missing. The president praised first responders and offered condolences to people who lost loved ones.
The Trump administration suffered a legal setback over its aggressive immigration raids in the Los Angeles area. A U.S. federal judge issued a ruling, ordering the Department of Homeland Security to stop making arrests without probable cause. The judge also ruled that detained migrants must be allowed to meet with their lawyers seven days a week.
All right. For more on this, I want to bring in CNN opinion writer and immigration analyst Raul Reyes, who joins us live from New York. More on the judge's ruling.
Thank you so much for being up early with us here.
So how significant is this legal setback for the Trump administration's immigration enforcement strategy?
RAUL REYES, CNN OPINION WRITER: This is very much a -- indeed a setback for the Trump administration.
[05:30:00]
REYES: It's policy that we've seen over the summer, of massive immigration raids all across all across Southern California, including L.A. County.
What the judge is basically saying is that, if these immigration arrests are to continue, officers must provide her with acceptable guidelines as to why they are stopping people, the reasons why they are detaining people and to show whether or not procedures were followed in terms of warrants.
But just to be clear, this does not mean that immigration raids are going to stop across Southern California. What the judge is saying, that the judge is saying, is that the ICE agents can no longer do these indiscriminate random sweeps, where they -- where they just bring in large numbers of people en masse.
Instead, what she wants to see is targeted immigration enforcement with warrants and for officers to follow up explaining the reasons why they detain people and showing that these detainees received proper access to counsel afterwards.
This -- her order lasts, will last for about 14 days for now. And most likely it's pretty much a given that the Trump administration will appeal.
But at least for now, Los Angeles may have some relief from really the chaos, that confusion and the fear that has swept across the southland during this time of so many raids throughout immigrant and predominantly Latino communities.
BRUNHUBER: But so this only applies in certain counties in California. But you mentioned, you know, obviously the Trump administration will appeal.
But on the other side, do you see maybe that other jurisdictions -- New York, for example, where migrants have been targeted as well -- might they try to, you know, have something else, appeal to a judge to have this similar a similar verdict apply to them?
REYES: Right. It would not surprise me at all to see other jurisdictions file similar lawsuits in places, like in Florida, in New York, Washington state, where we have also seen these large-scale raids.
I think one of the potential legal stumbling blocks, we will see looking ahead, is that, even if a federal judge agrees to block, at least temporarily, some of these immigration raids, we've seen again and again that the Trump administration then takes these cases to a higher court, such as the Supreme Court.
And the Supreme Court has -- our Supreme Court conservative majority has tended to rule against these lower courts, issuing injunctions. So that's a built-in tension.
But at least for now, some of these communities may see relief in the future. And just for context, in Los Angeles County, at least over the last two months, with these massive raids going on, 69 percent of the detainees of the people arrested had no criminal record.
So that just is a marker of how much this is impacting regular people here, whose only offense is being in the country without authorization.
BRUNHUBER: More and more broadly, I mean, tensions are clearly growing between the Trump administration and federal courts on immigration. We saw this in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case, where a judge said getting answers from DOJ lawyers was like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall. Now we have this California ruling.
Is this becoming a pattern of judges finding the administration isn't acting in good faith?
REYES: Well, this is becoming a pattern of federal judges finding that the administration is not acting in good faith when it comes to immigration and deportation cases.
We saw that with the birthright citizenship case that began at the federal level with the first deportation of Mr. Abrego Garcia, when the U.S. sent -- another incident where the U.S. was sending -- tried to send deportees to South Sudan.
Again and again we see this frustration among federal judges that the Trump administration is simply not complying with their orders, being completely truthful or that it's giving them very vague responses. So that has been a continuing issue.
And I guess the way to look at it, the broader picture is just this tension between the power of the judiciary to serve as a as a check on the power of the president, the executive branch.
And what's interesting to me is all of these fights around illegal immigration and deportation are taking place at a time when the American public has done a real U-turn on immigration since Donald Trump's election.
I mean, the public has made quite a U-turn on this. We now see 62 percent of Americans disapprove of Donald Trump's immigration, the way he's handling immigration.
[05:35:00]
Mass deportations are only supported by 38 percent of Americans; whereas letting undocumented people stay here and perhaps gain citizenship is supported by 78 percent of Americans. So politically, the tide seems to be changing and it's not in the favor of the Trump administration.
BRUNHUBER: All right. We'll have to leave it there. Raul Reyes, thank you so much for speaking with us.
REYES: Thank you.
U.S. stocks fell on Friday after president Trump threatened to impose a 35 percent tariff on Canadian goods by August 1st. The Canadian prime minister is scheduled to discuss U.S. trade talks with his cabinet on Tuesday. It's not clear if this latest escalation will be a blanket increase on all Canadian exports.
Trump has also hinted his administration's close to reaching a trade deal with the European Union. Sources close to the negotiations say the current framework agreement would lock in a 10 percent U.S. tariff amid future trade discussions.
So while the president has yet to sign off on a final deal, officials expected to be announced in the coming days.
Meanwhile, on the domestic front, president Trump is growing increasingly frustrated that interest rates aren't lower and White House advisors are coordinating a public pressure campaign against Fed chairman Jerome Powell. CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich has the latest.
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VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: It's a full-court press of pressure on the head of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell. President Trump once again calling on the Fed chair to lower interest rates but said he doesn't plan on firing him. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I think he's doing a terrible job. I think we should be -- no, I think we should be three points lower interest rate. He's costing our country a lot of money. We should be number one, and we're not, and that's because of Jerome Powell.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
YURKEVICH: And now more administration officials are adding pressure to the Fed chair, including the head of the Office of Management and Budget director, Russell Vought, who said the renovation of the Federal Reserve's headquarters in Washington, D.C., was over budget by $700 million and out of scope.
With rooftop terraces, water features and premium marble, claims that Powell denied before Congress last month. Vought says the renovation is out of compliance with the approved plan and thus is in violation of the law.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RUSSELL VOUGHT, DIRECTOR, U.S. OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET: I know you guys want to make it more about a metaphysical question about the independence of the Fed. This is about the extent to which this building, this renovation project is horrifying from a cost perspective.
And our administration, both OMB, the National Capital Planning Commission, which now has three new commissioners and as of yesterday is going to be asking -- is asking very, very tough questions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
YURKEVICH: Three new commissioners are Trump loyalists who replaced commissioners ousted by president Trump, a source familiar with the matter told CNN. All of this is added pressure on Jerome Powell at a time when some members of the Fed's own board are calling for a rate cut this month.
Economists and experts believe Jerome Powell will remain in his position until his term is over in May of 2026. An early departure would be alarming for markets. The Fed's next meeting is just a few weeks away, when they will decide whether or not to cut rates -- back to you.
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BRUNHUBER: The Trump administration's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case is creating havoc among some of Donald Trump's supporters. Sources say deputy FBI director Dan Bongino didn't show up for work on Friday and that he's thinking about resigning over the situation.
This comes days after top Trump administration officials say Epstein didn't keep a secret client list and that the convicted sex offender wasn't murdered in prison.
The FBI and the Justice Department have been reportedly clashing for weeks over how much information to release. During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump said he would consider releasing the Epstein files. But earlier this week, he tried to dismiss the topic. And some conservatives aren't having it. Have a look.
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TRUMP: Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?
This guy has been talked about for years. You're asking -- we have Texas. We have this.
We have all of the things with -- and are people still talking about this guy, this creep?
That is unbelievable.
TUCKER CARLSON, TV HOST: It's not adequate to say anyone who asks them is somehow desecrating the memory of little girls who died in Texas. They're not going to put up with that answer. I don't care who gives that answer. That is not acceptable.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: Still to come, in his first interview with CNN since being released from an ICE detention center, Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil has details his time in captivity. We'll have that story and more coming up. Please stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: In his first interview with CNN since being released from U.S. federal custody, Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil discusses his time in an ICE detention center with CNN's Christiane Amanpour. Here he is.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Mahmoud Khalil, welcome to the program.
MAHMOUD KHALIL, STUDENT ACTIVIST: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
AMANPOUR: Take me back to that day, which was awful for you and your family and all your friends and relatives and people watching. When they came to your house, I think it was nighttime and we have some video and seized you.
KHALIL: Yes. Christiane, it-- it felt like kidnapping having plain cloth agents follow me into the lobby of my building, a private space, threatening my wife with arrest if she wouldn't separate from -- from me, refusing to answer any questions they have, refusing to produce a warrant arrest.
And basically like saying all the wrong things, like I have a student visa. They did not believe that I am a green card holder.
So it literally felt like kidnapping, extrajudicial targeting. And for the next 24 or 30 hours, I was literally moved from one place to another like an object.
AMANPOUR: Were you harmed at all at any time?
Were you beaten?
Were you rough handed?
Were you harmed?
KHALIL: I was shackled all the time. Shackled like this and my ankles as -- ankles as well. Like I was criminal.
So it was a very dehumanizing experience for someone who was not accused of any crime whatsoever.
AMANPOUR: So let's talk about the accusations. You say it was, you know, foreign policy related. Let's get it absolutely straight. President Trump, on Truth Social, called you, quote, a radical foreign pro-Hamas student. His spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said that you were, quote, siding with terrorists.
Why do you think they said that about you?
And as we, you know, as we described when we introduced you, you were one of the student protest leaders in this very fraught situation of the war between Israel and Gaza on Columbia University campus.
What did you think when they -- when they said that -- that about you?
KHALIL: It's absurd. It's basically to intimidate me.
[05:45:00]
They want to conflate any speech for the right of Palestinians with a speech that's supporting terrorism, which is totally wrong.
The protests were peaceful. We're asking a simple ask to stop Columbia University and the U.S. complicity and the genocide that's happening in Gaza.
And that's why I see these accusations as intimidation. They -- and that's why it did not -- they did not succeed in court. I mean, as of yet. And it's just like to distract from what's really happening. They want to distract us from the U.S. support, unconditional support, to Israel in its -- in its genocidal war in Gaza.
This is what -- what's happening or what happened to me and to others. And it's a message that they want to make an example out of me, even if you are a legal resident, even if you are a citizen, actually, that we will find a way to come after you, to punish you, if you speak against what we want.
AMANPOUR: In some other universities, there were people in the immediate aftermath, pro-Palestinians, in the immediate aftermath of October 7th, who essentially blamed Israel and, you know, even exacerbated even support for Hamas.
And I wonder whether you think in retrospect these protests were, the early ones, maybe even some on Columbia campus, were self-defeating and got you all in the kind of trouble that you're in now.
KHALIL: What's self-defeating and what's dangerous is actually continuing the killing in Palestine. This is what these students speak or spoke against.
And from -- from the moment that these students spoke out against Israel, they were labeled anti-Semite, that they're creating hostile environment to Jewish students. Again, this is just like deliberate distortion from reality.
These students did not actually like -- or the protests themselves did not create a hostile environment for Jewish students. The Jewish students were an integral part of this -- of this movement because their Jewish values and teachings tell them that they should stand up against injustices, especially when these injustices are being committed by a state or by a state that claiming to represent -- top represent them.
So I refuse this connotation that these protests were, in any way, violent, in any way anti-Semite. What's violent is universities and government's penalizing and criminalizing freedom of speech.
AMANPOUR: You missed the birth of your first child, a boy. Everybody was very concerned about your wife, who is an American citizen there without you.
What was that like?
And then what was it like when you were first able to hold your child for the first time? KHALIL: Missing the birth of my child, I think that was the most difficult moment in my life, especially because, like, this could have been avoided. We put so many requests to be able to attend that moment. And I will not -- I don't think I would be able to forgive them for taking that moment away from me.
The first time I saw my child was literally through thick glass. He was literally in front of me, like five centimeters away from me. Yet, I couldn't hold him.
And when the moment came to hold him, it was by court order to have one hour with -- with him. So to be honest, my -- it's -- I just can't describe that moment. And it's a combination of anger and happiness.
I was happy that I'm finally -- I was finally holding him in my hands but at the same time, angry at the system that deprives people from -- from such -- such important moments in their lives.
AMANPOUR: Mahmoud Khalil, thank you so much for being with us.
KHALIL: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: And you can see more of Christiane's interview with Mahmoud Khalil on the "AMANPOUR" hour. That airs Saturday at 11 am Eastern time, 4 pm in London. That is about six hours from now.
All right, still to come, the Latin music icon who's moved the typical Vegas residency all the way to Puerto Rico. Its potential impact and the political statement being made after the break. Stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: Latin music megastar Bad Bunny kicked off his two-month residency in Puerto Rico on Friday. It's projected to boost the domestic economy there by over $200 million, with the potential to attract over half a million visitors to the island. CNN's Juan Carlos Arciniegas has the latest on the sold-out 30-date concert run.
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JUAN CARLOS ARCINIEGAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Bad Bunny has been described by "Billboard" magazine as the king of Latin trap. He's an artist with global reach, whose popularity has allowed him to achieve something that no other Latin artist has managed.
Four of his six studio albums have hit number one on the Billboard 200 chart, a chart dominated by English-speaking performers. So when Bad Bunny announced a 30-day residency concert series in his native Puerto Rico, tickets sold out in a matter of hours.
According to the tourism agency, Discover Puerto Rico, his concert series, titled "No Me Quiero Ir de Aqui" or "I Don't Want to Leave Here," is expected to bring in about $200 million to his Caribbean island home.
And about 600,000 people are expected to visit Puerto Rico specifically for the concerts, roughly double the number of visitors it usually gets.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was amazing. I'm so excited to see Bad Bunny. It's my first time seeing him, so I'm really excited to see how it's going to be.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm feeling great. You can really feel the emotion in the air. Everybody's excited. It's a once in a lifetime event.
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ARCINIEGAS: For those who couldn't get tickets. Bad Bunny will start a new world tour in November to promote his new album. Although that tour still does not include dates for the United States, Bad Bunny has not forgotten his fans there.
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ARCINIEGAS: On the 4th of July, he released a music video for his song "NUEVAYoL" with a political parody, in which a voice that sounds like president Donald Trump apologizes to immigrants in the U.S. and admits that, without them, the country would not be what it is today.
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ARCINIEGAS: Juan Carlos Arciniegas, CNN, Hollywood.
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BRUNHUBER: Oasis fans rushed into Heaton Park in England on Friday, some arriving 15 hours before showtime to secure the best spots to see the iconic British band belt out classics like "Supersonic" and "Roll with It."
It was day one of the rock band's long awaited return to their home city of Manchester, where they'll play six shows as part of their reunion tour. Oasis fever will continue with shows across North and South America, Asia and Australia.
All right. Well, that wraps up this hour of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Kim Brunhuber here in Atlanta. For our audience in North America, "CNN THIS MORNING" is next. And for the rest of the world, it's "AFRICAN VOICES: CHANGEMAKERS."
