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Pentagon Spokesman Reassigned Following Diversity Content Purge; Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Is Interviewed About Judge; Trump Admin To Clash In Court Over Deportation Flights; Judge Says Trump Admin. Can't Deport Georgetown Fellow. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired March 21, 2025 - 11:00   ET

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

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[11:02:00]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, breaking news, Heathrow closed. One of the world's busiest airports is completely shut down after a massive fire nearby knocked out its power and then left tens of thousands of passengers stranded. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. Wolf Blitzer is off. I'm Pamela Brown. And you're in The Situation Room.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN Breaking News.

BROWN: Breaking news, Elon Musk just wrapped up his meeting at the Pentagon. I want to go live to National Security Correspondent Natasha Bertrand at the Pentagon. And, Natasha, you know, for our viewers wondering why is this so important, of course, this is someone who has an enormous amount of power in the Trump administration, who has lucrative contracts with DoD, and who does business with China, right?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, that's exactly right. And that's why when this "New York Times" story first came out last night that reported that he was going to be receiving a highly classified briefing -- briefing here at the Pentagon, it obviously raised some alarm bells among critics who say that Musk has potential conflicts of interest in hearing such classified information about China's war plans. Now, it's unclear if that is exactly what was discussed here at the Pentagon today.

He spent just over an hour meeting with Secretary of Defense Hegseth. He also met with other senior military officials, we're told. And he walked out of the briefing and didn't really answer any specific questions about what was discussed. He said that he always has great meetings at the Pentagon because he, of course, has been here many times before, which he also mentioned.

But when we asked him multiple times if he received any kind of briefing about China or whether he received any kind of classified information, he did not respond. And, in fact, when the "New York Times" later asked Pete Hegseth directly what they discussed, Hegseth looked at the Times reporter and said, why would I tell you? So, clearly, a lot of secrecy surrounding what actually transpired there. However, we should note that Hegseth did post earlier today on X saying that this was going to be a meeting about different projects that Elon Musk was interested in and working on. And, of course, we know that Elon Musk has been working with his DOGE team on aspects related to cutting military spending all across the Department of Defense.

So it is definitely possible that all of these topics were part of the conversation here today. And we should note also that when Elon Musk left the building today, he shook hands with Hegseth and he said, let me know how I can be helpful. He said that he wants to see a good outcome here, something that Hegseth responded, you got it, too. So there was a very chummy relationship between the pair.

Clearly, they're working very closely together on a range of things, Pam. I want to ask you about something else because there's been a lot of discussion about what the Pentagon is doing in terms of its DEI policy and taking down pages essentially of war heroes and then putting them back up. And the press secretary for the Pentagon has been reassigned in the wake of this, right?

[11:05:06]

BERTRAND: That's right. So the entire DEI purge of thousands and thousands of articles and photos of anything possibly related to diversity, equity and inclusion content has really kind of turned into a mess for the Pentagon because so much content that actually has nothing to do at all with DEI has been taken down as part of that purge, as well as, of course, other articles and photos about very important historical figures that the Pentagon now says were likely removed in error.

And so what happened was a senior Pentagon spokesperson who was responsible for responding to a lot of the outcry over the removal in particular of a story about Jackie Robinson, who served during World War II. There was an episode where he responded with multiple different statements that appeared to conflict. And ultimately, the muddled messaging was kind of the final straw, and that person was ultimately reassigned. But I think it just really underscores here how chaotic this whole process has been.

And we reported just yesterday that people were given such a small amount of time to comply with this order, which was ordering them to essentially purge thousands and thousands of websites and images that they made mistakes. And so now they're trying to rush and clean it all up, Pam.

BROWN: All right, Natasha Bertrand, thank you so much.

And we're also following some breaking news at a Heathrow Airport in London where the power has been partially restored after an outage completely shut it down. This massive fire nearby knocked out power to Heathrow, stranding tens of thousands of passengers around the world. And airport officials are still telling those passengers to stay away for now. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They said there's no flight, and we have yet to hear anything. We've been here for how long, three hours, three and a half hours, four hours, with no information.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're waiting. We don't know. One of our parties said that we wouldn't get out until the 24th, which is a long time, you know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: All right. I want to bring in CNN's Anna Stewart on the phone with the latest. Anna, if you would, just tell us the latest on the reopening plan and why this matters, sort of the ripple effect from this happening at an airport like Heathrow.

ANNA STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So, as you said, we are now hearing from the British utility company National Grid that they are -- they have sort of restored power to parts of Heathrow on an interim basis. So what's unclear is, you know, whether all of Heathrow Airport currently has power and whether that can be relied on the airport still urging passengers not to go there.

So at this stage, the plan was that the Heathrow airport would be reopening at midnight tonight. So that was very much dependent on what the power situation is. Now, as you say, Heathrow airport is a massive airport. It's not just the biggest and busiest airport in the U.K. It is the busiest airport in Europe. This means that it is dealing with hundreds of thousands of passengers every day.

And they're not just coming to and from London, of course. Heathrow is very much a hub. It deals with really large aircraft. So as a result of just the disruption we've seen so far today, we've seen planes being rediverted. Over 100 were actually in the air at the time of Heathrow Airport's closure. So those have had to redivert to areas in the UK, but also airports all around Europe, which means passengers are stranded in all sorts of different places.

Aircraft are in the wrong places. Aircraft crew are all in the wrong places, and all of their shift patterns have been messed up. So you can imagine that if Heathrow airport does manage to reopen as planned, midnight tonight, and airplanes can take off again tomorrow, the disruption is going to last for several days. And we're told that around 200,000 passengers have been affected so far. Pamela?

BROWN: Wow, that's a lot of passengers. Anna Stewart, thank you so much.

And in federal court today, the Trump administration is set to face off with that judge who blocked the President's deportation flights over concerns that migrants weren't receiving due process. And then, as you know, President Trump called for that judge's impeachment.

So let's discuss that and more with Congressman Jamie Raskin. He is the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. How do you expect this fight to play out?

REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Well, Judge Boasberg is an excellent judge. He's a conservative judge, and he rules by the book. And he has rightfully asked the administration to account for what exactly happened after he gave an order that the airplanes were not to land in El Salvador. So my sense is that he is going to see this through, and the Department of Justice is going to have to account for what happened. And --

BROWN: And so far they haven't given the full accounting, according to the judge. He has said that it's been very, you know, insufficient.

RASKIN: He's asked very straightforward questions about when the flights took off, when exactly they landed, and how that related to his judicial order to have -- to have the planes not leave America and to have them stay.

[11:10:06]

Look, all of this is about this outlandish invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which says that the president can order that foreign nationals of enemy governments be picked up if we're at war with another country. We're not at war with Venezuela. It would have to be Congress that declares war, not the President of the United States.

There's also an exception if there's a military invasion of the United States. There's no military invasion of the United States. Therefore, this seems like a very cut-and-dry legal issue, and Judge Boasberg rightfully is demanding that the administration comply with the law.

But it's really just one of dozens of cases. You know, more than 140 cases have been filed across the country, and there are temporary restraining orders or preliminary injunctions in more than 45 of them at this point, where the courts are ordering the administration to comply with the Constitution and with the rule of law. That's why Donald Trump and J.D. Vance and Elon Musk are calling for impeachment of these judges who are doing their jobs.

I mean, Judge Boasberg was first appointed by President Bush to the Superior Court. He got promoted to the District Court by Obama. But these are judges across the political spectrum. You can't identify them as Obama judges or Biden judges. There are Reagan judges. There are Bush judges. There are even Trump judges who are stopping them from engaging in this lawlessness.

BROWN: And -- and as you heard from Chief Justice John Roberts in that extraordinary statement, you can't just impeach a judge because you don't like the -- the decision that judge made. There is an appellate process for that. I want to move on to something else.

RASKIN: Can I say one word about the impeachment?

BROWN: Yes.

RASKIN: You know, we've had 15 impeachments of judges in American history for things like being constantly drunk on the bench, corruption, bribery. Nobody has ever been impeached because of the substance of a judicial opinion that they rendered. The proper approach to that, as Chief Justice Roberts pointed out, is to appeal the decision. And by the way, the logic of all of these opinions seems airtight to me. It's the administration, which has completely run off the rails and is acting in a totally irresponsible and lawless manner as if they don't care about the Constitution.

When you say to them, something you're doing is unconstitutional, and they say, we campaigned on that. Well, whether or not that's true, it's irrelevant. You can campaign on doing something unconstitutional. You can campaign saying, I'm going to make everybody in my family a king or a queen or a duke, but the Constitution forbids titles of nobility.

BROWN: So then on that note, I'm just wondering, I mean, how close do you think, in your view, is the country to a constitutional crisis? We've been hearing that thrown around a lot.

RASKIN: Yes. The language of constitutional crisis is a bit vague and -- and ambiguous.

BROWN: Yes, what does it mean in your view?

RASKIN: And kind of, you know, worked over to my mind. I would say there's an absolute attack on the Constitution taking place by an administration which views the Constitution as just inconvenient furniture that's got to be kicked out of the way. And the people, the courts, many people in Congress are defending the constitutional order against a lawless President who thinks that the Constitution doesn't apply to him. I mean, he talks about the phony emoluments clause. Well, that's in the Constitution.

You know, one of his first executive orders was to try to deny birthright citizenship to people. The first sentence of the 14th Amendment says all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States. And you had five different judges striking down what he did.

BROWN: Right. And it seems to be the legal strategy to get it up to the Supreme Court. We'll see what happens. But you said that, you know, Congress is -- is stepping up and trying to provide the checks and balances. But you've been seeing these town halls all across the country, Democratic town halls, where a lot of Americans are feeling that way. Democrats or, you know, Republicans as well are upset. We've seen it on both sides of the aisle. You just had a town hall as well.

RASKIN: Yes.

BROWN: What are you hearing?

RASKIN: Well, I've been doing town halls and rallies since this began. I say a rally a day keeps the fascists away. And I go everywhere. I've been obviously in my district in Montgomery County, Maryland. Last night I was up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, because the Republican member there would not conduct an in-person town hall. And so I went and did one. And a lot of Democrats are doing that because people are mad. People are very anxious. People are outraged by this assault on federal workers, this assault on the air traffic controllers, this assault on the Department of Education.

BROWN: Right. But they feel like Democrats aren't doing enough. And I'm wondering if -- if you would equate this to the Tea Party-style revolt that we've seen in the -- in the past as it pertains to Democrats.

RASKIN: Well, I think the Democrats are out there now, and we are all together in saying we must defend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. And look, it took America many years before it rallied to the threat of fascism and totalitarianism in Europe. I mean, people have busy lives. But I think the American people, the Democratic Party, are standing up now to every offense against freedom and democracy in the country.

[11:15:06]

BROWN: All right. Well, as you've -- as you've seen, a lot of the -- the voters out there are -- don't feel like enough has been done on the Democratic side of things. Of course, Republicans, Democrats, no matter what the politics are, people have different views of what's happening.

RASKIN: Well, I'm sure enough has not been done. And all of us need to be working harder together, including the media, which is obviously under complete attack, too.

BROWN: And right. Well, I mean, in the Democratic approval ratings of, what, 29 percent or rather close.

RASKIN: And it's Democrats who are mad at us for not doing enough to oppose Republicans. So we're going to be tougher against the Republicans because that's why our numbers are low. People are saying not all the Democrats are fighting hard. And we need to be fighting hard every single day and fighting shrewdly and cleverly and nimbly against this attack on our institutions.

BROWN: All right. Congressman Jamie Raskin, thank you so much.

RASKIN: Thank you, Pam.

BROWN: Still ahead, a judge is stepping in after the Trump administration tries to deport a Georgetown University scholar.

Plus, the economy, inflation, grocery prices. Are Trump voters satisfied with the president's move so far? Don't miss our conversation with two talk radio hosts about what their listeners are calling in to say. We were just talking about the town hall. Now we're going to talk about what listeners calling in, what they're saying, what's on their minds. Stay with us in The Situation Room.

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[11:20:57] BROWN: Well, and another setback to President Trump's crackdown on immigration. A judge is now blocking the administration's effort to deport a Georgetown University fellow who was arrested by immigration officials after he was accused of spreading Hamas propaganda. Joining us now for more on this as CNN correspondent, Tom Foreman. Tom, what more do we know about this case in particular?

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What we know about this case is that the administration was trying to say that he was promoting this propaganda to push Hamas' agenda. He and his wife said, no we're not, we're not connected. So the -- the moves where this came about were, boy, they were something. According to the court filings, basically masked men confronted him on the way home. Brandishing weapons. Swept him up. And then he was immediately shipped off to Louisiana. So far, far away from all of this. They all felt that was a very chilling effect. Even though they say there's no basis for any of this. And now the courts have said, yes, you've got to put the brakes on here. There's got to be some kind of proof before you just say, here's a guy from another country. And we think maybe he's up to something.

BROWN: Right. I mean, and there's due process, you know, protections under the constitution and so forth.

FOREMAN: Sure.

BROWN: How does this case fit into all the other cases we've been seeing?

FOREMAN: Very similar to the case out of Brown University where a doctor there was basically shipped out after they said that she went to the funeral of a Hezbollah leader over in her home country of Lebanon. Similar to the case of the -- the man from Colombia who was a pro-Palestinian, there -- there are differences, case to case, obviously.

But some critics are saying unites them all is this notion that if you are speaking up, especially in the university environment, and if you are a foreign national who is legally here, and all these people are legally here, that if you're speaking up against policies the President likes, they're going to step in and say, no, we -- we think what you're doing is interfering with foreign relations in this country, and you have to get out of the country. They say if you're legally let in, you can be legally thrown out.

BROWN: Right, but then also, you know, there's -- there's the First Amendment, free speech protections. What is the Trump administration's goal in all of this from your reporting?

FOREMAN: Many of the critics of this say it's really quite simple, you know, Donald Trump doesn't like protesters, except January 6th. He doesn't like protesters who oppose him. He doesn't like the optics of it. He doesn't like the -- the appearance of it. Notably, you remember his defense secretary, Mark Esper, said during the Black Lives Matter protest that Donald Trump asked, why can't we just shoot them or at least shoot them in the legs? There's very much a sense of the people who are opposed to what's happening here that the goal here is to simply make universities and communities and universities afraid to tolerate these types of protests, to say to them, you better tamp all this down because the President doesn't like it.

And whether his actions are ultimately legal or not won't matter if the schools themselves start saying to their faculty and their students and their postgraduate students, you need to not do any of this because we don't want to lose funding. We don't want to get in trouble. We don't want to be in a legal fight. Whether that's true or not, that's what they believe right now as they watch the administration push these kinds of cases.

And notably, I want to say Donald Trump himself said during the campaign, many times, he said we will revoke the student visas of radical anti-American, anti-Semitic foreigners at our colleges and universities, and we will send them straight back home. Again, whether that's legal or not, that's what he pledged, and that's what they're doing.

BROWN: Broadcast what he would do --

FOREMAN: There you go.

BROWN: -- and -- and he is doing it.

FOREMAN: There you go.

[11:24:25]

BROWN: Tom Foreman, thank you very much. Appreciate having you on. Well, right now, counterterrorism police are leading the investigation into that fire that knocked out power to London's Heathrow Airport. Police say no foul play is suspected, so why are they involved? We're digging deeper next.

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BROWN: Well, we are back to the breaking news. London's Heathrow Airport is still closed right now after this massive fire nearby knocked out power to one of the world's busiest airports. Tens of thousands of passengers are stranded around the globe as a result. The British utility company says power is being restored to parts of the airport on an interim basis.

And while officials are saying, look, there is no indication of foul play in the fire, the London counterterror police say they're investigating this. So let's try to better understand this with our very own CNN chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst, John Miller. Why call this a counterterrorism investigation if they're also saying there's no foul play, John?

[11:29:41]

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Interesting question, but I think theory here is if you bring in SO15, which combines the Special Branch, the anti-terrorism section and all of its intelligence partners, you get the power of 1,500 of the most experienced investigators and all of their partners in the intelligence community. So let's start off with --