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Iran: Considering U.S. Proposals After Closing Strait; Joe Rogan Helped Speed Up Executive Order On Psychedelics; Federal Judge Blocks Merger Between Nexstar And Rival Tegna; Women & Weed; Strong Line Of Storms Move Across East Coast Today; Food Crisis Worsening In Lebanon After Weeks Of Conflict; Arrest Warrant Issued For ICE Agent Accused Of Pulling Gun On Driver. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired April 18, 2026 - 17:00   ET

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

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[17:00:35]

OMAR SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Welcome to the CNN NEWSROOM, everyone. I'm Omar Jimenez in New York. Jessica Dean has the night off.

We're going to begin with breaking news out of the Middle East.

Iranian officials say they are considering new proposals from the United States aimed at untangling confusion over the Strait of Hormuz. Now, Iran says it will again shut down the vital shipping route for 20 percent of the world's oil flow.

Just yesterday, Tehran declared the strait completely open. But today it reimposed its restrictions, blaming U.S., quote, "breaches of trust".

Now, this morning, President Trump downplayed this latest diplomatic challenge.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have very good conversations going on. It's -- it's working out very Well. they got a little cute, as they have been doing for 47 years. They wanted to close up the strait again, you know, as they've been doing for years. And they can't blackmail us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: But the situation has been changing quickly. Maritime officials say Iranian gunboats fired on a tanker trying to pass through the essential waterway. And a second vessel also reported being hit by a projectile of some kind.

I want to go to Islamabad, Pakistan now, where a second round of U.S. -Iranian peace talks are scheduled for next week.

CNN's Nic Robertson has been there, where all eyes are monitoring these reported Iranian attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Nic. NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, it could be

pretty serious. It might just be a sort of minor skirmish. But if anyone was looking for clarity on what Iran means by closing the Strait of Hormuz, which they announced earlier today, there seemed to be a little bit of wiggle room. If you were on the right side of Iran and said the right things to right people quick enough, maybe you could get through.

But right now, the IRGC, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps -- Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps -- is saying any vessel that approaches the Strait of Hormuz will be considered in cahoots with the enemy, and therefore they will be targeted. That's clear.

And that's what happened to those two ships earlier today, a tanker about 20 miles off the coast of Oman, that puts it pretty much close to the Strait of Hormuz, hit when two IRGC gunboats pulled up alongside the tanker. The captain saying he tried to speak to those gunboats on the radio. They didn't respond and they just opened fire. The crew, the ship safe.

And then two hours later, same area, a container ship, one of those big ships carrying all those big metal containers. A projectile, unknown projectile fired at it. Some of the containers damaged.

But look, let's take a step back and see what's happened here over the past couple of days. Late Thursday, you get that ceasefire in Lebanon. That's what Iran wanted.

The next day, while you've got Pakistani negotiators, high stakes talks there in Tehran, trying to get the Iranians to soften their position. Then the Iranians give up something. They say they're going to open up the Strait of Hormuz. And they wait and see what President Trump says.

And President Trump said a number of things. But the key thing to them on that was that he continued his blockade. And that's where things seemed to fall apart on the Iranian side.

You could hear tensions, the hardliners playing against the -- against the moderates who they felt had given up too much ground.

So here we are today, a day later, the Strait of Hormuz closed, the potential for the talks still in the air. But it does seem what happens, and we say this so often, what happens in the coming hours will be so critical.

But perhaps the Iranians have put the ball back in President Trump's court for him to decide how to respond to their aggression and their blockade.

The talks potentially can keep moving forward. He's sounding positive. The Iranians the day before yesterday were saying things are inches apart. The Pakistani mediators, they're saying 80 percent of its done.

It's within grasp. It could happen. And if it does, then it's going to be here. SANCHEZ: But things fragile at the very least. Nic Robertson in

Islamabad, Pakistan for us.

I want to go to the White House now. CNN's Julia Benbrook is there for us.

So, Julia, what are you learning today about U.S.-Iranian diplomatic efforts?

[17:04:47]

JULIA BENBROOK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Omar, it's been an interesting day here at the White House because all of these latest developments in Iran that Nic just detailed are top of mind. But President Donald Trump has made it clear that at this point, he does not want to talk about it.

In fact, he spoke with reporters in the Oval Office just a couple of hours ago. This was for an event on an entirely different subject. It focused in on research and expediting FDA approval for certain psychedelics. It's a part of a broader push to explore mental health resources and treatments.

But when it took time -- came time to take questions, he made it clear that he only wanted to talk about that. He did not want to get into the broader conflict.

As he started, he made some brief remarks saying that there were ongoing conversations, he expected to have more to share at some point. He also, regarding the Strait of Hormuz, said that the United States could not be blackmailed.

I want to play you part of those remarks.

Not sure if we have those for you, but I can detail some of them. So he said good conversations were going on. He said they got a little cute, as they've been doing for 47 years. Nobody ever took them on. We took them on.

He went on to speak about their navy, their air force, saying that they have no leaders. This is something that he has repeated a lot.

He has also said that their leaders are in this regime change, you call it an enforced regime change. And then, of course, again, as I said, he said that we cannot be blackmailed when it comes to the Strait of Hormuz.

Now, following those remarks in the Oval Office, we have been keeping track of some top officials that have been arriving at the White House. We have spotted secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth here, as well as CIA director John Ratcliffe, at one point today Vice President JD Vance motorcade was here.

So we have reached out to see if there was any sort of formal meeting, formal discussions as all of this is going on, and it comes just a week after, of course, Vance led that delegation with Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

And then he walked out of that saying that there was not an agreement in the conflict, and that this was the best and final offer from the United States.

And then there's the ceasefire of it all. You know, there's just a few days left there. And Trump was recently asked if he would extend that if there wasn't a deal in place. And he said, maybe I won't.

So trying to put a timeline in place there. But Omar, as we've tracked all of this, those timelines have shifted a lot throughout this conflict.

SANCHEZ: They've shifted and dynamics have changed pretty quickly on the ground as well, which we're about to show in a little bit. Julia Benbrook, really appreciate the reporting.

As I mentioned, look, if you track the data from Marine Traffic earlier today, it shows how ships were turning around on the Persian Gulf side of the strait as you follow sort of the red and green arrows here.

The red is for tankers carrying crude oil and liquefied gas. The green cargo vessels, often carrying containers. So we've been monitoring this. You can see where they aren't at this point and where they've sort of been turning around.

I want to turn now, though, to Michael Allen, former special assistant to President George W. Bush for national security. He was also senior director for counter-proliferation at the National Security Council.

So Michael, Iran once again restricting the strait over quote, "repeated breaches of trust". But I wonder, what do you assess those breaches being? I mean, would it solely be sort of the naval blockade that we've seen from the United States at this point?

MICHAEL ALLEN, FORMER SPECIAL ASST. TO PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH FOR NATIONAL SECURITY: I think that's probably at the heart of it. But really, what we have here is, I think, a failure to have a meeting of the minds between the two parties.

I think when Iran declares the straits are open, they mean if you go down a predetermined path and they may still mean you have to pay a toll.

And so I think the United States assumes that literally that it will be free and open. And when we find out or otherwise discover that that's not the case, I think the United States withdraws or withholds the blockade -- the idea that we're going to pull out from the blockade of Iranian ports. And then that spirals and gets us where we are today.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

ALLEN: I think we're close. I feel like if we have more conversations, we can get this sequencing correct. But I definitely think that we're losing a lot and talking past each other somewhat.

SANCHEZ: Well, and based on what we've seen to this point, how do you believe the United States should be moving forward or should respond to what we've seen?

ALLEN: Well, I think we ought to continue to press for a free and open Strait of Hormuz. I don't think it's in the United States or the world's interest to have Iran with the veto power of who gets through or otherwise collecting tolls on an international waterway.

[17:09:49]

ALLEN: So I think we have to stick to our negotiating position here. And the greatest leverage we do have is a continuing blockade of Iranian ports.

However, I think we're ready to get through this. I think the Iranians are also ready to get through this. So we're going to have to continue to plow through these details.

I would expect that the ceasefire would be extended because it feels like we're close enough to an agreement.

We may have a meeting sometime soon, but I think they've got to get really almost on the one-yard-line before they agree to go out and meet the Iranians somewhere for some sort of signing ceremony, if you will.

SANCHEZ: You know, you mentioned the blockade sort of as the biggest piece of leverage that the U.S. has. I mean, should the president have expected Iran to reclose the strait when he announced the blockade was still in effect? What is the play on that front you believe?

ALLEN: So I think he had to understand that that might be part of what they were offering. They're just going to have to get very explicit with the Iranians about what we expect and why we might withdraw the leverage that we have on the straits.

We've got to make clear that tolls are not part of this. They don't have a veto power, because if they do, then they're going to have sort of a control over the international economy, not only the oil and gas going through the straits, but more broadly, the products coming out of the region, which will have knock-on effects across supply chains.

And so I think we've got to stay tough here. We've got to work on the sequencing, and we've got to work on the definitions of what all of this language means.

And if we do, then I think we can hammer out something that could last longer than 24 to 48 hours.

SANCHEZ: Yes, yes. And obviously it will be a big factor in whatever negotiations end up looking like as we're expecting them to come in this week.

But I want to turn to the negotiations front because as I -- as I mentioned, we're expecting a new round. But when you look at what might potentially be on the table, does anything that we -- that the United States reaches diplomatically end up looking that much different than the previous JCPOA, Iran nuclear deal?

And by that, I mean, you know, that deal had monitors for uranium enrichment. It released some money for the Iranians, which was criticized but also we're in a similar sort of situation here.

Are the tenets that much different from where we might end up diplomatically here?

ALLEN: Well, it depends. If we're in a situation where Iranian enrichment is just limited by time frame, and even if it's just somewhat longer than the one from the Obama era deal, I think President Trump will have a hard time arguing that its central feature isn't very much like what President Obama negotiated.

However, if we're saying that you can't have uranium enrichment whatsoever and they are turning over their highly-enriched uranium, I think they're able to make the case that, well, this is more permanent than yours was.

The problem, of course, is President Trump has said that President Obama sent pallet's full of cash to Iran so many different times associated with this agreement.

Now, if we do something similar, even if we're just unfreezing Iranian assets, I think the president, at least on more than a superficial level, will be subject to charges of hypocrisy.

But, you know, I think we've got to work through this. I don't love the idea of paying them to have their highly-enriched uranium, but that may be the best we can get at the end of the day.

Because right behind the reopening of the strait, I don't think we can live with having gone through this huge military campaign, Iran with 440 kilograms of highly-enriched uranium, which they could very easily get up to 90 percent if they have centrifuges hidden somewhere.

SANCHEZ: Yes. We are a long way from that negotiation table at least for those final tenets but I got to ask them nonetheless.

Michael Allen, I really appreciate you being here. Thanks for taking the time.

ALLEN: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: All right. Still ahead, President Trump accelerates research on psychedelic drugs with a new executive order. And he had an unexpected maybe ally by his side. We'll explain.

Plus, devastating damage reported across several states after a tornado outbreak hits the Midwest.

A whole lot more coming up. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

[17:14:06]

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SANCHEZ: New tonight, President Trump has signed an executive order to fast track research into psychedelic drugs for mental illness. Now, psychedelics for medical use have seen support from both sides of the political aisle but a popular podcaster may have convinced the president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Joe Rogan is a fantastic person. We did a little interview before the election. We had over 300 million people. And I said, oh man, I hope kamala doesn't do it. And she didn't.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: CNN media analyst and Axios correspondent Sara Fischer joins me now. So Sara, I mean, Joe Rogan was right behind the president as he signed the executive order, but he has been heavily-critical of the president's war in Iran as well as immigration tactics and foreign policy.

So where did this come from, this type of support, and why now?

SARA FISCHER, CNN MEDIA ANALYST: This is one of Joe Rogan's biggest pushes around things like psychedelic medicine and advances in health care, around things like natural remedies.

[17:19:48]

FISCHER: He and the president have also been aligned in the past around things like Ivermectin as a treatment for COVID. And so Joe Rogan is somebody who aligns very much with this message.

I also think that the president sees Rogan as somebody who can appeal to a bipartisan coalition of policy makers that are going to be interested in this, and also regular Americans who are going to be interested in this.

You heard the president, 300 million people listening to his podcast interview with Joe Rogan before the election. This is not, Omar, just some MAGA influencer. This is a widely-popular figure.

SANCHEZ: Yes. I mean, he's just one of several podcasters or conservative hosts who have sort of, you know, they supported the president leading into the election, and they have been supportive of him, but have turned on him at many points because of the Iraq war, specifically.

I just want to play for everyone what Rogan said on his podcast, "The Joe Rogan Experience".

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE ROGAN, PODCAST HOST: Anytime you're involved with -- you're shooting missiles into towns and blowing things up, blowing up infrastructure, blowing up bridges, you know. And Israel's blowing up Lebanon now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

ROGAN: It's like, what the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) are we doing?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Right.

ROGAN: Like, how is this still going on?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: President also lashed out at others like conservatives, Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson, for their criticisms of the war. He even went after Pope Leo, which we've seen as well.

But I just wonder, and you laid out some of it, sort of the idea that Rogan can hit a bipartisan group of listeners. But why the praise and special treatment for Rogan? Is that what sets him apart, you believe from the Megyn Kellys of the world, for example?

FISCHER: Joe Rogan has never tried to purport to be MAGA or conservative. He has always sort of seen himself as being a man of the people, a little bit more populist. Whereas Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, they started out, when they got into the podcasting game out of broadcasting, very pro MAGA, very much people that the president would have expected to be in his corner, backing him at all times.

In fact, they serve a different function for the president. The president doesn't look at Joe Rogan as his cheerleader. He looks at Joe Rogan as a populist person who he can leverage his reach and audience.

He expects Megyn and Tucker and Candace Owens to be his cheerleaders. That's why he treats Rogan like this. But he doesn't treat those other MAGA influencers the same when they call him out for the Iran war.

SANCHEZ: I want to pivot real quick to a federal judge in California blocked the merger of Nexstar with its rival station Tegna. You know, it was a controversial move. The Democrats sued last month to block the deal and are calling the ruling a major victory.

But President Trump publicly endorsed it in February. What is at stake here?

FISCHER: Ok, in the United States, the most common way that people get access to local news and local sports is through these local broadcast stations. And for years they've been saying, we need to consolidate because we're not going to be able to compete with big tech unless we can. The problem is we have laws that prohibit big broadcasters from coming together if they're going to reach too many Americans. And those laws were created so that we didn't have one voice controlling all the news that you get in one local market.

When it comes to Nexstar and Tegna, you know, technically, if these companies come together, it would break that law. They would overstep the national broadcast ownership cap.

But the FCC, under Trump approved the deal anyway. And so a competitor, sort of, DirecTV, which is, you know, a company that has to distribute these broadcast stations, went along with a bunch of Democratic states to sue to block this deal. And they have a strong legal case. Omar.

That's why I think this judge paused the, you know, companies from coming together. But what that means is that anyone else in the local broadcast space that was thinking about merging or consolidating, they now have to think twice. It's not going to be a shoo-in for them to do it.

And it also is another win for states and blocking a big mega merger or a big deal. You saw last week the DOJ had, you know, they said they weren't going to break up Live Nation. Well, the states figured out a way to get that reversed.

And so this is new, Omar in American policy, where it used to be that the federal government had so much power over mergers and acquisitions. Now we're seeing the states step up.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

Sara, just one last question here. And I think you set it up there is what really happens next with this particular case. I mean, is this the end of the road here for this merger attempt?

FISCHER: Very confusing. So obviously Nexstar is going to try to appeal it. And you know how appeal processes work, Omar. They can take very many months and years. It could go up to very, very high courts.

But in the interim term, it's a little awkward. They didn't say that this merger can't go through. They just stopped them from merging their operations.

So that puts these two mega companies, which combined, you know, are billions of dollars' worth of market cap on pause. They can't do anything. They can't bring their operations together. They can't start any sort of synergies. And so that sort of slows them down.

[17:24:50]

FISCHER: And also in the interim, you can imagine that other entities that were suing to block this merger because it wasn't just DirecTV in the states. It was, you know, consumer groups, et cetera. This gives them more time to see their lawsuits go through.

So it's just very messy for the, you know, immediate future. But the big picture here is no other local broadcasters are going to announce a deal in the next few months or even in the next year because of this.

SANCHEZ: Yes, messy to say the least. But that's why we bring you on Sara Fischer, to make it digestible for all of us.

Good to see you. Thanks for being here.

FISCHER: You, too. Thank you.

SANCHEZ: All right.

Meanwhile, CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta has been reporting on cannabis for more than a decade. And tomorrow night, his latest documentary looks at how medical cannabis is on the rise with women of all ages.

And his reporting led him to Oklahoma, where he met a group of women who say, "cannamom" is the new wine mom. Here's a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everyone knows I am the safe consumption house. So typically when they're coming to my house, we are consuming cannabis.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I love the porch parties because we just come together, kick it, chill.

JASMINE FROST, MOTHER: I needed a night out that wasn't consumed with my little one. I'm a stay-at-home mom currently and it takes a toll.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Jasmine Frost's 20- month-old daughter is back at home with her husband.

FROST: It just helps me relax within my night and just kind of forget the worries, so to speak, and just live.

ANNETTE HENDRIX, MOTHER: Some moms get together on the weekends and they have a wine party.

GUPTA: Annette Hendrix uses cannabis to help ease the pain and inflammation caused by Crohn's disease. That's a chronic bowel disease that affects women more severely than men.

HENDRIX: The biggest thing that I have to combat is people thinking I can't care for my child if I've consumed cannabis.

STEPHANIE LOGY, MOTHER: It allows me to be a better mother. It allows me to be a better human.

GUPTA: Stephanie Logy (ph) is a mother of two. She uses cannabis as an alternative to alcohol and also to help with depression.

LOGY: I think a lot of moms hide it. I choose not to hide it.

GUPTA: Not even from her children who are 17 and 8.

LOGY: I explained to him, this is medicine. This is what I choose to use. You know, instead of going to the pharmacy to pick up a bunch of pills, I go to the dispensary.

(END VIDEO CLIP) SANCHEZ: "DR. SANJAY GUPTA REPORTS: WEED 8: WOMEN AND WEED", airs tomorrow night at 8:00 and Monday on the CNN app.

All right. Still ahead for us, a tornado outbreak in the central part of the country, leaving behind damage like this for so many. That system is now moving east, bringing in an unexpected change in temperatures.

We'll have more coming up. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

[17:27:40]

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[17:32:08]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, oh! Oh my God, debris raining out of the sky.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: Mark that as a place I do not want to be, staring down a tornado. But it is another storm threat over the central U.S. that is threatening now after severe thunderstorms and twisters exploded across the region, Friday afternoon.

Tornadoes and heavy wind blowing the roofs off houses, damaging cars, destroying an entire row of homes. Authorities say in some areas, emergency teams had to rescue people from their basements. And the area around Rochester, Minnesota, for example, was one of the hardest hit, with dozens of homes damaged. Thankfully, no injuries have been reported.

But CNN meteorologist Allison Chinchar has more.

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It has certainly been a very busy last 24 hours. You take a look at all of these dots. Those represent one of more than 300 total severe storm reports. That includes tornadoes, damaging winds, and even some hail, some of which made it all the way up to baseball, even tennis ball sized hail in some of these locations.

Now, we do still have the potential for those severe storms to continue through the evening, tonight, right here, in these red shaded areas right there along that cold front as it continues to slide off to the east. One thing to note, you've got record warmth out ahead of that front and much cooler air behind. And it's really that clash of those cold and warm temperatures that's fueling the potential for those severe storms.

So, these will continue to slide east as we make our way through the evening, so that by tonight, starting to see a lot of those head towards Philadelphia into Charleston, West Virginia, making their way over towards Knoxville and Chattanooga. And even some stretching back into Louisiana, Southern Arkansas, and even into Texas. Now, one thing to note, we talked about those cooler temperatures. That means when we get overnight tonight and those temperatures drop back, yes, we could even see a change over into snow across portions of upstate New York and northwestern Pennsylvania.

Not much in the way of accumulations with much of that snow, however, still just noting that you will gradually see a little bit of that mix take place overnight tonight and even through the early morning hours, simply because of that temperature drop.

Speaking of which, take a look. 91 for the high Raleigh, Saturday. It was only 59 for the high in Paducah, even the high of 70 in Memphis. Keep in mind, happened before lunchtime. The temperature has just continued to drop for most of the day today, and will continue through the evening hours.

Another thing too, we do still anticipate the potential for some isolated tornadoes through the evening hours tonight, noting that we are heading into the peak time for this. So, April is not necessarily the peak. That is May. But April is when we start to see that uptick in tornado count before we peak in May, and that continues through early June.

JIMENEZ: Lot to watch out for. Allison Chinchar, really appreciate it.

All right. Meanwhile, after weeks of fighting and a fragile cease fire appearing to hold, some residents are returning to parts of southern Lebanon, but the struggle for food is showing no sign of easing.

[17:35:06]

We are going to talk to the World Central Kitchen about it coming up. You are in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JIMENEZ: Today, Israel is accusing Hezbollah of violating the cease fire agreement with Lebanon, saying its military responded by conducting what it called precise strikes on an imminent threat.

But this comes as scores of people have been seen returning to southern Lebanon as the 10-day cease fire is in effect, though fragile.

[17:40:07]

Many were forced to flee after evacuation warnings from Israel, but now they are returning to communities in ruins.

Chef Aline Kamakian has been leading World Central Kitchen's response across Lebanon. She joins us now from Beirut.

So, just to start, can you tell us about the need you and your teams are seeing right now?

ALINE KAMAKIAN, MEMBER, WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN CHEF CORPS, LEBANON: Thank you for having me, Omar.

Well, the humanitarian situation is still critical, you know, as soon as the ceasefire was announced. Even before, people started to go massively to -- back to the south, but the government discouraged their return. But people left anyway, because the life in the shelters is really tough. Most of the shelters are schools or sports centers, unequipped, and overcrowded.

There is a severe lack of sufficient sanitary provision and high risk of epidemic and pests.

They left because they had the urge to know what happened to their houses, or because they wanted -- they hoped to pick up some necessity from half destroyed homes. Within the first 24 hours, many returned to the south briefly. But on Friday, we saw trails of cars loaded with women and children both ways, you know, mattresses and coming back. Going and coming back because of what happened and the threat that they received back.

So, the situation is still the same. The food is still needed. We are -- we are -- our operation didn't diminish, but rather shifted geographically. If you want. The number of internal displaced people in the south side Tyre and Jazin have increased tremendously.

So, we immediately scaled up our operation towards the south, to Sidon, rather than to the mountain and the north area. So, we shifted our places.

We are coordinating continuously with the shelter's focal point to make sure that we send enough meals. But the numbers are changing extremely fast.

Our cooks and delivery teams are doing the impossible to reach the numbers. So, we are cooking 25,000. Still, we are cooking 25,000 meal per day. We passed the 1 million meals since the second of March. The need is tremendous. We are cooking, as I said, 25,000 healthy and nutrition, warm meal a day. But the demand is ever bigger.

JIMENEZ: Yes. Yes, you know, I heard you previously describe that mark of a million meals as sort of bittersweet, because on one hand, you all have been able to produce that amount of meals. But the fact that it is needed is obviously a tragedy.

I want to ask you about something else, because earlier this month, the Israeli military launched its largest coordinated attack on Lebanon since the beginning of this latest war. Striking what it described as 100 Hezbollah targets in just 10 minutes. But at least 182 people were killed, according to the Lebanese health ministry, with hundreds wounded.

And you said, what you saw that day reminded you of the Beirut explosion in 2020. Why?

KAMAKIAN: Exactly. Unfortunately, you said 182. Today, the numbers is 452 and there is still digging and digging to more and more, unfortunately. JIMENEZ: Yes.

KAMAKIAN: Because the day of -- I was wounded on the day of the explosion, and it was the same feeling and the same destruction all over the place. And when they strike, they said they strike 180 people. Well, I don't know, but the places that they strike, and the tremendous big amount on a 10-minute -- on a nine minute, if you want exactly, it was like -- it was like a chaotic and all -- every places were on fire, dismantle. All the cars became as ambulances so that people can help the others.

We couldn't go from one place to another -- or the road were jammed. Ambulances couldn't pass, and all hospitals were folded with all the injured people. It was the most populated areas during the peak hours of people that we are on the streets, and it was between supermarkets, shopping malls, and every places that people usually go.

And plus, you don't have schools, so everybody was in in the houses, so you have most of them that are children and women in this 452 people.

JIMENEZ: Aline, come back in. Really appreciate you taking the time and sharing your perspective. Again, with the amount of work you've been able to do crossing that threshold.

[17:45:03]

Bittersweet, as you have described of over a million meals. Thank you for taking the time.

KAMAKIAN: Thank you.

JIMENEZ: All right. Coming up, a Minnesota county attorney is filing a charges against an ICE agent. There is just one problem, though, no one knows where that agent is, at least they don't. You are in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:50:02]

JIMENEZ: An arrest warrant remains active for an ICE officer who now faces two assault charges. Prosecutors accused Greg Morgan of pulling his car up to another vehicle while on duty in Minnesota, and pointing his government issued firearm at the driver and passenger.

But prosecutors say they don't know where Morgan is or if he's still working for the Immigration and Custom Enforcement Agency right now.

CNN has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for comment, as well as an attorney for Morgan.

But I want to bring in the Hennepin County attorney Mary Moriarty, who joins us now. And I just want to start with, have you heard from Greg Morgan, his attorney, or DHS, since you announced those charges?

MARY MORIARTY, CHIEF PUBLIC DEFENDER, HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA: No, we have not heard from any of them.

JIMENEZ: And did you expect, I mean, what is generally the communication pattern between federal government officials and someone like yourself, especially on the law enforcement side of things?

MORIARTY: Well, typically, when there is a warrant out for somebody's arrest and we announce that, the person, or preferably their lawyer, would reach out to us and try to make arrangements to turn themselves in.

So, that's common practice. We just are not seeing that here in this case.

JIMENEZ: And I guess one of the questions at this point is, how long do you expect this arrest warrant to remain active, and what is your plan if DHS doesn't cooperate here?

MORIARTY: It remains active as long as we want it to. And we certainly have avenues to with law enforcement to have him picked up once he is located. I think it's very hard to live with a warrant because it can crop up anytime. He could be pulled over for speeding, and an officer could check and learn that he has got that warrant and take him into custody, and we would extradite him.

But we certainly have avenues to find him. And I think in this day and age, it's really hard to hide when you get social media out there.

And so, our hope certainly is that people are saying, or will tell law enforcement, hey, he is here so that we can find him easily.

JIMENEZ: You know, and this is really a unique situation. I mean, I haven't seen any other example to this point of local prosecution, you know, at least putting out a warrant for the actions of a federal immigration enforcement agent over this past year -- over what we have seen over this past year. You know, you and I spoke back in January in Minneapolis during sort of the height of the Operation Metro Surge presence in the Minneapolis area, which you described to me as an occupation.

And one in which you told me members of the community felt they were under attack by their own federal government. And I wonder was any part of this warrant meant to send a message to the federal government?

MORIARTY: Not exactly. We have some strict guidelines to think about when issuing a warrant. We can either issue a complaint by a summons or a warrant. But we need to know where the person is before issuing a summons.

Also, in a situation like this, where we have a person actually pointing a handgun at two people on the highway while they are driving illegally on the shoulder, this is a case where we would normally ask for a warrant anyway.

JIMENEZ: And, you know, the Trump administration to this point has claimed absolute immunity really here that that's what ICE officers enjoy. I know you disagree with that. Why?

MORIARTY: Well, it's not only me that disagrees with that. That's the law. That just isn't the case. Federal officers have no absolute immunity if they violate state criminal laws.

What they may be referring to is Supremacy Clause immunity, and that's a very different thing. So, for instance, if a state official or state D.A. charges somebody federal agent with state criminal violations, they will probably make a motion to try to remove it to federal court. That's fine. That's a pretty low bar. But we still stay on the case. It's not going to be U.S. attorneys. It will be local state prosecutors applying state law.

Also, if there's a conviction, the president cannot pardon the person. The Supremacy Clause immunity comes in because they -- I would expect a federal agent to make a motion to dismiss based on Supremacy Clause immunity. That's up to the judge to decide, and the burden is on the federal agent.

And they have to show they were acting within the scope of their employment as a federal agent, and that they were doing nothing that was above or more than necessary or proper.

And I think you can see here, we have a federal agent who is driving back after his shift who chose to violate the law by driving on the shoulder, which is illegal. And then, had all kinds of time, no matter what he was thinking about, what the other driver was doing, to just merge into that lane and just go about his business onto Whipple, which is where ICE is located.

But he didn't do that. He sped up, and then, you could see him slow- down in the video so that he was right next to the people, in the vehicle next to him.

[17:55:03]

JIMENEZ: Yes.

MORIARTY: And while he was driving, rolled down his window, and pointed a gun at both of them, and they were terrified.

So, to us, that seems well beyond what one would be expected to do as an ICE officer, and it certainly wasn't necessary and proper to accomplish whatever his role was at that time.

JIMENEZ: You know, while you are still pursuing this case, I think -- I think, many looking from the outside in, are waiting for your offer -- office to charge other ICE officers for their conduct in Hennepin County, including the shooting death of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.

And federal officials I know had previously blocked state investigators from accessing evidence, and you were part of a public plea for people to send in any materials that they have. But I just wonder right now, do you ever anticipate being able to charge in any way, the agent who shot and killed Renee Good, or the agents who shot and killed Alex Pretti. And if so, on what grounds? MORIARTY: So, we got over a thousand submissions to our public portals on both of those cases. As you know, we filed a federal lawsuit, or lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C., because we made demands for the evidence in that case going through the appropriate process.

And the Department of Justice didn't even respond to us. So, our lawsuit is asking the court to force the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security to give us that evidence.

The reason we have been able to charge the case that we charged this past week is because it came to us the way cases typically do. There were two community members in a car on their way shopping. This person waves a gun at their heads. They called 911. They took a video of the vehicle, the SUV. So, we had the license plate. The State Patrol responded, interviewed the victims, and then, also went to Whipple and interviewed the two ICE agents who were in the car, who did agree, by the way, that they pulled up next to the vehicle and pointed a gun at these two victims.

So, then, that case was submitted to us. So, we didn't have any of the obstruction that we see in all of the other cases in this case, and that's why we were able to charge it.

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JIMENEZ: Got you.

MORIARTY: That being said, we are still progressing on our investigation of the Good and Pretti murder, or, yes, murders, and then, also the shooting of Julio Sosa-Celis. So, we continue to progress on those and we are kind of waiting to see what the department of justice's response is to our lawsuit. That should be due sometime in May.

JIMENEZ: And that Julio shooting is also being investigated by ICE, as we understand as well for misrepresentations.

Mary Moriarty, I got to leave the conversation there, but thank you so much for taking the time.

MORIARTY: Thank you.

JIMENEZ: All right. Coming up, the president voicing frustration as Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz again and gunboats fire on a tanker.

We'll have the details coming up.

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