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U.S. Navy Fires On, Seizes Iranian-Flagged Cargo Ship; Dems Face Key Test In Virginia Redistricting Vote This Week; New Poll Shows Majority Disapprove Of Trump's Handling Of Iran; 8 Children, 2 Women Wounded In Louisiana Mass Shooting; Attorney Fights For Release Of Court Interpreter Detained By ICE; Police Cracking Down After "Teen Takeovers" Turn Violent. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired April 19, 2026 - 18:00   ET

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

[18:01:04]

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

And breaking tonight, the U.S. military says a U.S. destroyer fired several rounds toward an Iran flagged cargo ship. President Donald Trump first announcing the U.S. Navy fired on and took custody of that cargo ship after it tried to get past the American naval blockade in the Gulf of Oman.

Now, this comes just hours after the White House said top U.S. officials are preparing to take part in another round of peace talks with Iran in the coming days. And it marks the latest escalation amid this ongoing, fragile ceasefire, set to expire in three days and an impasse over control of the Strait of Hormuz. It's prompted renewed threats by Trump, raising already heightened tensions in that region.

CNN's Julia Benbrook is at the White House.

Julia, what more are we learning about this incident with the Iranian vessel? And how is the president and his team thinking about these negotiations in a few days?

JULIA BENBROOK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, with these negotiations coming in a few days, every hour, every day, every development matters. So as President Donald Trump announced this, he said that U.S. forces had fired on and seized an Iranian flagged cargo ship as it attempted to pass through that U.S. naval blockade in the Gulf of Oman.

Now, I want to pull up that post for you now. He did go into a bit more detail. He said, quote, "The U.S. Navy guided missile destroyer USS Spruance intercepted the Touska in the Gulf of Oman and gave them a fair warning to stop. The Iranian crew refused to listen. So our Navy ships stopped them right in their tracks by blowing a hole in the engine room. Right now, U.S. Marines have custody of that vessel."

Trump's announcement comes as he has accused Iran of violating the current ceasefire that we are in right now, that has a few days left. He was recently asked if he would consider extending that if a deal is not met by then, and he said maybe not, maybe I won't extend that.

DEAN: And Julia, what have we heard from President Trump in the recent days leading up to this? How has he evolved in what we're hearing from him publicly?

BENBROOK: Well, it's been about a week now since those talks took place in Pakistan, led by Vice President J.D. Vance, as well as special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. And following those talks, Vance said as they were leaving without an agreement to end the conflict that this was the best and final offer from the United States.

Trump was optimistic at that point that the Iranians would want to come back to the table. He said essentially that eventually they would give him everything that he was asking for, everything that he wanted. Today, his posture is no more Mr. Nice Guy. He says -- that was an exact quote, I guess I should add. He said, "No more Mr. Nice Guy," and that he believes that the United States is offering a very fair and reasonable deal here, and that they -- he hopes that they take it, because if they don't, the United States is going to knock out every single power plant and every single bridge in Iran. So once again, threatening to target their energy infrastructure.

And then when it comes to these talks, there was a bit of confusion, Jessica, about who exactly would be attending because Trump, speaking to reporters earlier in the day, he said that Vance would not be attending this round for security reasons. He said J.D. is great, but for security reasons he would not be going. We have contacted a White House official here and heard that the plan is to send Vance, Witkoff and Kushner still. And when we pushed about the confusion around the U.S. delegation, they just said that plans change.

DEAN: All right. Julia Benbrook at the White House, thank you for that.

And here to discuss further, former NATO Supreme Allied commander, General Wesley Clark. He's also the founder of Renew America Together.

[18:05:01]

General Clark, it's good to have you here with us. I do want to first just get your thoughts on this news we've just gotten in the last couple of hours about what's happened with the naval blockade, with them firing upon this Iranian flagged ship.

What do you make of this development?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET.), FORMER NATO SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER: Currently the ship was coming into Iran, going to dock at Bandar Abbas, which is the port on the Strait of Hormuz. So it was coming from somewhere else, loaded with cargo, presumably. It's a ship that's already been sanctioned by the United States. It disobeyed orders to stop, the United States then took the appropriate actions. So I think it's just proof positive that the president meant what he said when -- and the Navy implemented the blockade just as advertised.

DEAN: Yes. How do you think this impacts these upcoming talks?

CLARK: Yes. Well, it really depends on whether Iran wants to move forward or not. Now, thus far, there's been no military response from Iran. The blockade is within range of Iranian missiles that could strike warships out there in the Gulf of Oman. So this destroyer was in range. It did not apparently receive any return missile fire or anything else from the coastal batteries or other facilities of the Iranians. So that's a positive sign.

We're sort of in a stage now where it's mutual assured economic destruction. If you look at it that way. So we're counting on the fact that all commerce has been cut off from Iran, at least all seaborne commerce, so they're not getting any revenue. They're not getting anything else coming in by sea, but there are also blocking revenue that's coming, that would be due to all of our allies in the Gulf and they're creating a global problem in agriculture, in fuel, and even in chip-making, because the helium cut off.

So which side is going to blink first? That's what it looks like right now.

DEAN: Yes. We are just getting word that Iran's state media has now warned that it will respond to this. What might that look like?

CLARK: Well, they might target the ships that are on the blockade. They do have the facility to do this. They have several different varieties of anti-ship missiles. They have cruise missiles. They have sea skimming missiles. They have ballistic missiles that can come in. They could go after this ship. They could go after other ships. Normally, they wouldn't fire just one missile for a destroyer like this. They would try to bracket it with several different missiles and several different types of missiles.

Now, are they on the ball? Do they have the real-time targeting to do this? We know that the Houthis did have that. We presume that this came from Iran. We also presume they're getting real time targeting information out of Chinese satellites. So it's possible they could respond, but they haven't yet. We don't know how much time has elapsed that it happened a half hour ago or an hour ago. But we do know that when we put this blockade in, in place, it is within range of Iranian shore-to-ship missiles.

DEAN: Yes. And do you see this as knowing what you just laid out there? Does this feel escalatory to you, or is this just part of an expectation of what is happening when a blockade is in place?

CLARK: I don't think it's escalatory, but the Iranian response also could be tit-for-tat and the talks could still go forward. I think one of the complications in here for the Iranians is that if they're going to really resume attacks and they would attack our friends in the Gulf, there's a 12,000 man Pakistani contingent in Saudi Arabia, and the Saudis have a mutual defense agreement with Pakistan.

So this would be a consequential step if Iran were to fire drones and missiles into Saudi Arabia. Maybe they could attack Kuwait instead, and maybe they think they'd get away with it. But I think they're going to think twice before they re-escalate in this. I think they're very tough bargainers. I think they believe that if they can get our delegation over there, they can outtalk them. They can put details in, they can delay this thing.

And they can continue to bring world opinion against the United States and that the clock is ticking against the United States because of the price of gasoline, because of the election coming up, because of President Trump's apparent impatience to end this.

[18:10:09]

So my guess is they're not going to escalate at this point. But that's what we should watch for.

DEAN: Yes. All right. Well, we will indeed do that.

General Wesley Clark, thank you for being here. We appreciate it.

CLARK: Thank you, Jessica.

DEAN: The man police say killed eight children in Louisiana in a shooting has been identified. We're going to bring you more details on that straight ahead. Plus a big vote coming up in Virginia that could shape the political field for the entire country. We're going to hear from both sides as we continue to talk this about this ongoing redistricting fight across the country.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:15:23]

DEAN: This week, Democrats in Virginia are facing a test and a push to redraw district lines that could net the party as many as four new seats in the House. Former president Barack Obama calling on voters to show up on Tuesday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: By voting yes, you can push back against the Republicans trying to give themselves an unfair advantage in the midterms. By voting yes, you can take a temporary step to level the playing field.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: We're joined now by CNN's senior political commentators Van Jones and Scott Jennings. Van is a former Obama administration official. Scott is a former senior adviser to Mitch McConnell and special assistant to President George W. Bush.

It is good to see both of you. Happy Sunday to you.

Van, I want to start first with you. Does this level the playing field if it passes? Is that -- would you agree with that assessment from the former president?

VAN JONES, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think it's the Democrats responding to a push from Donald Trump to weaponize this idea of redistricting. We've never done this before. Every 10 years is when we used to do it. Donald Trump says, nope, I want to do it differently. And so now we're all living with the consequences of that. And I think President Obama is stepping up to the plate that was set by Donald Trump.

DEAN: And Scott, to that point, like do you agree Republicans kind of started this whole tit-for-tat redistricting back and forth?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No, the first mid- decade redistricting was done in New York, actually, number one. Number two, the people of Virginia ought to vote no on this, if for no other reason than their radical governor flat lied to them. She told them during her campaign she had no interest in partisan gerrymandering. She wasn't going to push this. And it's the very first thing that she did.

When I hear Barack Obama say, oh, this will be a temporary redistricting, all I can hear is Barack Obama saying, if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. He lied then, he's lying now. If the Democrats take this map from six to five in a 50-50 state to a 10 to 1 map and put every congressional district under the control of a Democrat who lives in Fairfax County, in northern Virginia, it will be a travesty.

It will be a tragedy for a state that has had a tradition of being very balanced, you know, kind of a bipartisan, nonpartisan state. And it's going to be run by radical Democrats forever. There'll be nothing temporary about this.

DEAN: But what makes it different than Texas, where Republicans were very much encouraged to vote yes?

JENNINGS: What makes it different than Texas?

DEAN: Yes. Yes.

JENNINGS: Well, there's -- I mean, look, inherently they can do it. I mean, I'm not arguing that they can't do it. It's not illegal necessarily for them to do it. I'm just arguing that they lied to the people of Virginia about it. The governor, Spanberger, who ran as a moderate, I'm a normal moderate person, and I have no interest in all this partisan politics. I'll never gerrymander your state. That's what she said. And now she lied.

And now they're trying to go from a 10 -- from a 6-5 map to a 10-1 map. There is not a single fair thing about it, and there won't be a temporary thing about it either.

DEAN: What do you think, Van?

JONES: Well, I mean, all this passion about, you know, honesty and politics, I mean, you know, Donald Trump lied and said he was going to take us -- wouldn't take us to war and we're in a war. And you can say that, you know, there's one thing happened in New York City. You had the president of United States, Donald Trump, sitting, you know, with all the power, telling legislators across the state, across the country to do something unprecedented. You know, some actually had to stand up against him and say, look, we're going to run our state our way.

You -- Barack Obama, President Obama never did anything like it nor did any other president do anything remotely like this. And Republicans now are all up in arms and upset and just can't believe it. But this was started by Donald Trump. So you should call Donald Trump and tell him you messed up. It turns out Democrats will fight back. It turns out Democrats aren't going to be rolled over and steamrolled, and that you can play this game.

It's a game that was started by Donald Trump. No president has ever done anything remotely like it. And I'm proud that President Obama standing up for this party. And if you don't like it, then Texas can -- if at any point they can say we're sorry and roll it back. And I'm sure we'll follow in due course.

DEAN: Do you think that's true, Scott?

JENNINGS: Look, here's what I think is true, that the governor of Virginia, Abigail Spanberger, ran a campaign for governor and promised the people of Virginia she had no interest in this. And the minute she got elected, it's the very first thing she did. And now you have Democrats from all over the country, like Barack Obama and George Soros and Gavin Newsom and whoever, coming into Virginia to try to basically turn Virginia into the national headquarters for the radical left of the Democratic Party.

There will be nothing temporary about this. It's gone from five to 10 to 1 if it passes. By the way, I think a lot of Democrats in Virginia are going to vote against it.

[18:20:02]

Even though they still feel like they are Democrats, they don't like being lied to. She lied to their face and they don't like it.

DEAN: Go ahead.

JONES: I'm all for honesty in politics. I think you should -- you should call your good friend Donald Trump and tell him it should start there. And if Abigail Spanberger is your definition of a radical Democrat, then I just think the goalposts have moved quite a bit. Not a single thing radical about Abigail Spanberger. And that's why she won so handily in the state and why she's still -- her approval ratings are still through the roof.

DEAN: I do want to ask --

JENNINGS: Yes, you're right --

DEAN: Go ahead, Scott. JENNINGS: Well, hold on. I don't consider her to be a radical

Democrat. I consider her to be a lying radical Democrat because she ran as a moderate, she promised she wouldn't do any of these things, Van, and you know it. And now her approval ratings, according to several independent surveys, have plummeted. She's the least popular governor of Virginia at this point in her term of any modern governor of Virginia. There's a reason. It's because she's the ultimate bait- and-switch Democrat.

JONES: Well, it depends on the polling that you're looking at. She's more popular than Donald Trump, I'll tell you that.

DEAN: OK, I want to -- hang on. I do want to get one more issue in here because I want to talk about this new NBC News polling that finds the majority, 61 percent want to see no further U.S. military action, two-thirds disapproving of the president's handling in Iran. And now we get tonight this news about what's going on with the naval blockade. Obviously, we're waiting on these talks to see how those pan out what will that mean.

Scott, to Van's point, the president said, no new wars. We're not going to -- we're not going to do this. And here we are. And the American people don't like it. What does this mean for the president politically?

JENNINGS: Well, the president also said he would never allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon for his entire adult life. He ran on it and he means it. And he's telling the people who run Iran, whoever they are now, it seems like they're rather fractured since we took out most of their original leaders, that I am not going to permit this. You're the largest state sponsor of terror in the world. I'm not going to permit you to have a nuclear weapon.

I do think the American people want this to be done as quickly as possible. But I also think the American people broadly agree on a few things. A, they can't have a nuclear weapon. B, they are terrorists, and C, we do have a responsibility to protect the American people and American interests in the region. And if the Europeans were smart, they'd come along because we now know because of this war, the Iranians have missiles that can reach most of Europe -- most of Europe.

Throw some nuclear material on there and that's a bad day for Western civilization. So polling aside and politics aside, the president is doing something that should have been done years ago.

DEAN: And, Van, do you think the average American feels safer now?

JONES: No. I mean, I think that, you know, Scott is right that not just Donald Trump, but every American president, including Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton have been very clear that this is not a regime that can have nuclear weapons. And frankly, the entire world has agreed with that. I think the question is, what do you do about that? How do you do it? And did you think it all the way through?

And I think that we had a little bit of kind of ready-fire-aim going on where the protests happened at one moment, the martyr armada arrives at a different moment. And so I just don't think this has been handled in a way that most Americans feel good about. But if there's ever a regime that needs to be challenged, it's this one. I'm just afraid it's not going very well.

DEAN: And Scott, I had former ambassador John Bolton on in our last hour. And he, and I'm paraphrasing what he said, but he was essentially saying that some of the decisions now to get out of this war are being driven by domestic politics. Do you agree with that?

JENNINGS: Well, I mean, that's certainly what the Democrats and the news media are pushing Donald Trump to do is to manage national security based on polling and politics. I want national security based on national security. How do we end this thing with a few objectives met? Number one, no nuclear weapons. Number two, no exporting of terror. Number three, no Navy that harasses ships in the Gulf there.

And number four, a safer Middle East and a Middle East that can prosper and flourish. I see that we have set them back dramatically. We've done widespread devastation to their military installations and their ability to export terror around the world. But to me, the big issue here is, can we exit this and tell the American people they will not, cannot, won't have a nuclear weapon? That is numero uno on my list. And I think for most Americans, that's the top objective.

So, however long it takes to achieve that objective, that's what he needs to do. To leave early before the deal is done, before the job is done, I think would actually be worse politics.

DEAN: And, Van, I'll let you have the last thought on that.

JONES: Yes. Well, I think -- I think the values that Scott is describing are values that are widely shared. The challenge, you know, Western powers always have a challenge when we're fighting an asymmetric battle against extremely ideological forces. So in Vietnam, you have people that are just there for communism no matter what you do. And you could bomb them forever and they weren't going to change. We have a tough time in those situations.

These folks, the people who grabbed power over there, they are Islamofascists through and through, and they do not want to give up power, and I think you can bomb them for a long time.

[18:25:08]

So this is the worst kind of opponent for Western powers to deal with. And we'll see if Donald Trump can figure it out. But this is, you know, it's not just blowing up stuff. We blew up stuff all over Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. These regimes are hard to deal with and we'll see what happens.

DEAN: All right. Van Jones and Scott Jennings, we appreciate both of you and your time tonight. Thanks so much.

JENNINGS: Good to see you, Jess.

DEAN: You too.

We are following a horrific story out of Louisiana where police say a man killed eight children. Our breaking news coverage of that continues after this short break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:30:08]

DEAN: We are learning heartbreaking new details after a mass shooting in the city of Shreveport, Louisiana, this morning that took the lives of eight children, all under the age of 14. The shooter also dead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTOPHER BORDELON, SHREVEPORT POLICE SPOKESMAN: We can confirm the suspect in these eight homicides is Shamar Elkins. He is believed to be the man responsible for this heinous act. I can tell you that seven of the eight children that were killed are believed to be his children. We are still working to determine a complete motive and understanding as to why this happened, but it is domestic in nature.

The mother of the children was also shot and had very serious injuries, although we are hopeful she will recover. There is another female that was in this residence that has life-threatening injuries. We are hopeful that she will pull through.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: Authorities say this is the deadliest mass shooting in the U.S. over the last two years. The mayor of Shreveport says the city is understandably very shaken by this.

Former Boston police commissioner Ed Davis is joining us now. He was the lead police official during the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013.

Thank you so much for being here with us, though the circumstances are absolutely brutal and hard to wrap your mind around. When law enforcement begins tackling something like this, what does that process look like?

ED DAVIS, FORMER BOSTON POLICE COMMISSIONER: Well, the protocols, unfortunately, are fairly standard. It happens. Things like this happen frequently, but your heart has to go out to the family here when so many children are involved. This is really a unique situation. And you know, the family, the first responders, and the community is really affected by something, by this kind of magnitude -- tragedy of this magnitude.

The police will secure the scene. They will look for witnesses. I understand that there is a teenage survivor here. Now, they probably won't be able to talk to him or her for a period of time, but at some point in time, they'll want to get as much, you know, sort of, first person witness statements that they can. Process the scene, look for evidence, and then they'll get into things like where did the suspect acquire the firearm? Was he licensed? Did he get it from someone else? Is it possible that even though an explosion of violence like this, that is domestic in nature, you never know what happened in the run-up to the incident.

So they'll drill down into all of those things. They've got at least three, maybe four crime scenes that they're processing. It's a big task.

DEAN: Yes, it certainly is. And the suspect is dead now. How does that affect everything?

DAVIS: Well, it really doesn't affect the initial response. The only difference here is that you are collecting evidence to communicate to the community what happened to the family. The prosecutors most likely won't have a case to bring to court unless someone else was somehow involved in it. They have to operate on that premise, though, that, collect all the evidence as if it's going to be suitable for court.

But in this particular case where a suspect has died it just puts a different kind of an end game in place, no less tragic and maybe understanding what happened is even more important than a prosecution.

DEAN: Yes. And will it be local officials that complete this investigation? Will the federal -- will federal officials be involved at all?

DAVIS: Well, the FBI usually stands by, so does the ATF, to help us in these situations. So it's likely that ATF will help in tracing the firearm. The FBI is always there for us if we need them. This doesn't involve federal jurisdiction on the face of it. It doesn't appear as though it's a federal crime. So the local prosecutors will be in charge unless there's something going on down there that we don't know about.

DEAN: Yes. And then just lastly, and you've kind of touched on this. Look, something like this really shakes the community. I would imagine it certainly shakes law enforcement who are used to seeing a lot, but eight dead children under the age of 14 is very extreme. How do they sort of process this and also help the community process something like this that is really devastating?

DAVIS: Well, you know, it's a terrible thing to have to go through and there needs to be assistance provided to the community members in the first responders, and particularly to the family. After the Boston Marathon, we had psychiatrists standing by to interview the officers involved and some of the victims, but we realized it wasn't enough. So about three weeks later, I teamed up with the president from Brigham and Women's Hospital.

[18:35:03]

And we actually created a system of, sort of support system for first responders in situations like this that still operates until today. So there are resources out there in the country. They should call in everybody they can in a situation like this.

DEAN: Yes. All right. Davis, thank you for being here with us. We appreciate it.

DAVIS: Thank you.

DEAN: And well be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DEAN: Tonight, a legal battle is playing out over the arrest of a 52- year-old court interpreter who was detained by ICE agents at a Texas airport. Meenu Batra's attorney says she's been living in the U.S. for more than 30 years, paying her taxes, raising four children.

[18:40:04]

Her attorney says she fled from India in 1991 due to violent crackdowns against the Sikh community that led to her parents' deaths, and that she was eventually granted withholding by an immigration judge here in the U.S. But a month ago, while traveling to a court trial for her job, she was arrested and taken into ICE custody.

CNN has reached out to DHS about Batras' detainment. They sent us this statement and it says, quote, "On March 17th, ICE arrested Meenu Batra, an illegal alien from India, during a targeted enforcement operation. Meenu was issued a final order of removal from an immigration judge in 2000. She first entered the country illegally at an unknown date and location, and she will remain in ICE custody pending removal and will receive full due process."

Joining us now is her attorney, Deepak Ahluwalia.

Thank you so much for being here with us. We appreciate it. So give us the current status here. Where is Batra being held? What's -- when's the last time you spoke with her?

DEEPAK AHLUWALIA, ATTORNEY FOR COURT INTERPRETER DETAINED BY ICE: Thanks for having me, Jessica, first of all. And yes, so Miss Batra currently is detained, Jessica, at the El Bahe detention facility in Raymondville, Texas. And she's been there for over a month now while her habeas application is pending before the Southern District Court in Texas, and that is really the basis of our entire argument.

I just saw, you know, the message that DHS has put out in response to you reaching out and as, you know, as DHS has been doing for the past year and a half, it's very selective in terms of the information they're sharing with the public. So what I would like to perhaps clear up is it's not a final order of removal per se. She was granted a relief by an immigration judge back in 2000. So we're talking 26 years ago, she was granted a benefit called withholding of removal.

And what that means, Jessica, is withholding removal grant is a formal order of removal, but it is deferred, meaning that the government is actually not able to remove in this case Meenu back to her home country absent a change in circumstances. And so when she was granted this relief by the immigration judge back in 2000, she lived and worked freely in the United States. She had valid work authorization. In fact, not only was she working since the year 2000, but she was

working since 1992 and has been paying taxes since 1992. And so our argument in terms of the habeas application that's been filed, Jessica, isn't the removal or the decision back in 2000 itself, it's the manner in which she was detained. It's her due process violations. It's the fact that for the last 26 years, she was never asked to come in.

She was never put on any sort of removal or post order instructions and asked to appear at an ICE office and she was going about living and doing her thing and raising four U.S. citizen children, the youngest one, who actually just joined the U.S. military.

DEAN: And so with this withholding of removal that she was granted, what is the next step that comes after that? Is that just -- does that just go on forever until a judge rules something different?

AHLUWALIA: Yes, that's actually a great question, Jessica. So historically, what would happen with a grant of withholding was that a person could remain here until DHS, by its own motion, would file something before the very court that granted this benefit and would ask to reopen the proceedings and take away the withholding benefit.

Now, this would generally happen in two situations. One would be someone committed a felony, which in this case, we would like to make it clear that Miss Batra had never been charged for any crime, never arrested for anything else, nor here in the United States, nor anywhere else outside. Or what would happen is DHS would file a changed country conditions motion, like I was referencing earlier, saying that the country conditions in this particular country have changed so much that it warrants an exercise of that withholding grant that was done 26 years ago.

However, in this administration, what happened was the -- this, you know, Trump 2.0, if you want to call it, found a loophole where they said, well, a grant of withholding prevents us from moving this said person to their home country, but the law doesn't say anything about us removing them to a third country. And so essentially, what's been happening in this administration, which I would also like to remind the public, there's a separate federal lawsuit going on for this very same issue, where this administration is attempting to remove or has successfully removed some individuals to a third country.

But the problem in this case is lack of due process. You cannot let someone out for 26 years, allow them to work, allow them to raise a family, never call them in prior, or even give them any advance notice of where you want to remove this person, and what's happened just like in Meenu's case, unfortunately, is they've arrested first and are planning later. Even to this moment, the government has not, let alone, you know, the attorneys, they have not even let Meenu know where they plan on sending her because clearly they cannot send her back to India.

DEAN: All right. So more to come but it sounds like you will be arguing again around the due process violation that you think has happened here more than anything else. [18:45:08]

All right, Deepak. Thank you so much. We appreciate your time.

AHLUWALIA: Thank you.

DEAN: Iran now vowing to respond after the U.S. Navy fired upon and seized an Iranian flagged vessel in the Strait of Hormuz. We are following the escalating tensions.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:50:00]

DEAN: In this week's "EVA LONGORIA: SEARCHING FOR FRANCE," we're taken on a journey from the lavender fields and coast of Provence to the vineyards of Bordeaux, and I sat down with Eva to discuss one of the things France is most known for and celebrated for, the patisserie.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: Let's talk about the role that patisserie play in Parisian life because it is part of the fabric there.

EVA LONGORIA, HOST, "SEARCHING FOR FRANCE": Yes. And the reason they're such good bakers specifically good bread makers, is because that was the food of the poor. Oftentimes that's all they would have for the week is a piece of bread. So that's what every household knew how to make. And they were expert bread makers.

The patisserie is just this art form of these beautiful desserts, from custards to eclairs to macaroon. It was the sugar episode. It was so much sweets in one week, I was like, I might die.

DEAN: You met with the executive pastry chef of Laduree.

LONGORIA: And I got to make my own flavor macaroon, and they did a Mexican inspired macaroon, which had chili and chocolate, and it was a little spicy, a little bitter with the chocolate. It was so good. But it's hard to make a macaroon. It is.

DEAN: It is very precise.

LONGORIA: Very precise. They're very fluffy and Laduree has perfected it. And they're just so beautiful. They're little works of art. It was -- it was really fun to be in the kitchen of such an iconic institution.

DEAN: And you also, you say you make -- you make croissants yourself.

LONGORIA: I do.

DEAN: Which is very impressive.

LONGORIA: Yes. During the pandemic, everybody was doing sourdough. I was making croissants.

DEAN: You learned with -- is it Chef Remy?

LONGORIA: Yes, Chef Remy.

DEAN: You have I'm sure your way that you like to do it.

LONGORIA: No, no. There's one way.

DEAN: That's it.

LONGORIA: The French way. Yes. And I was like I fold it like this. And he was like that is wrong.

(LAUGHTER)

DEAN: So cute of you to do it that way.

LONGORIA: That's sweet. That's not a croissant. You know? I'm like, oh, but no, lots of rules and a lot of regulation, not only with the croissant, with the baguette. The baguette is highly regulated. The ingredients, the amount where the flour comes from, where it's milled, how much water, salt. I mean, all of it is very, very regulated.

DEAN: That seems to be very French in that same thing with champagne has to be from a specific region.

LONGORIA: Right. The great thing about doing the whole series in general was honoring this tradition and celebrating it. And at the same time seeing all of these young chefs being innovative and inventive and breaking the rules, even though a lot of them go, you need to know the rules to break the rules. So they have tremendous respect for what came before them before they start to break the rules.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: All right. Be sure to tune in for two new episodes of "EVA LONGORIA: SEARCHING FOR FRANCE." That starts tonight at 9:00 Eastern and Pacific here on CNN and tomorrow on our CNN app.

We also have a warning from police to parents, which is to watch your kids, particularly as a new social media trend is growing in popularity. There's always a new one.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:57:42]

DEAN: A growing issue developing on social media that begins with postings for high school meet-ups known as teen takeovers and all too frequently they become large and unauthorized gatherings in major cities. A lot of which have erupted into chaotic and reckless scenes. And now law enforcement is cracking down on that. CNN's Rafael Romo joins us now with more on this -- Rafael.

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jessica, well, they have happened in Los Angeles, Chicago, the nation's capital, and here in Atlanta, these so-called teen takeovers are organized online, can become massive, and some have turned chaotic and violent. That's why authorities across the nation are taking steps to address the problem with some sending parents a clear warning.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROMO (voice-over): Chaos in the city. This video from the Gwinnett Police Department in Georgia shows crowds of teenagers in what authorities are calling teen takeovers.

DEP. CHIEF JASON SMITH, ATLANTA POLICE: These takeovers need to stop. They need to come to an end. They're causing chaos and violence.

ROMO: They're sparked by social media posts that are amplified throughout the internet, and authorities say they are left with few options other than increasing their presence and warning parents about the dangers.

CHIEF RONALD APPLIN, ATLANTA POLICE SCHOOLS POLICE: For the parents, you need to watch your kids. You need to understand what they're doing. You need to know what they're doing every second of the day. Do not let your child lose a potential future by doing something that doesn't make any sense at all.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you have anything in your pockets?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's going to get you, yes, I had a taser and I have a --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have a taser?

ROMO (voice-over): Though not all teens who gather engage in illegal behavior --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm 16. I'm 16.

ROMO (voice-over): Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens warns it doesn't take much for a fun outing to turn into a nightmare.

MAYOR ANDRE DICKENS, ATLANTA: It only takes one stupid decision that can be made by just one or two individuals that can really cause a ripple effect that continues to hurt someone, that could really stop a life or injure someone, or really just cause chaos in the community.

ROMO (voice-over): Suburban Atlanta, where the Braves have their stadium, has been hit, too. In a joint statement, businesses and Cobb County officials said they will not tolerate teen takeovers or any other unauthorized gathering which promotes or incites violence, vandalism or public disorder.

Like others around the nation, the city of Atlanta has imposed a curfew for minors between the hours of 11:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. on school nights.

SMITH: These teen takeovers they started in December of 2025.