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Judge Halts Deporter Order Against Tufts University Student; Interview With Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA); White House Downplays Use Of Signal App For Yemen Attack; Rescue Efforts Underway In Deadly Myanmar Earthquake; Judges Block Trump Order Targeting Mueller-Linked Firms; Trump Announces $100M "Settlement" With Law Firm; Hamas Agrees To New Ceasefire Proposal, Israel Counters; Anti-Hamas Protests Spread Across Gaza; 100-Plus Migrants Deported From U.S. Are Stuck In Panama; "Twitter: Breaking The Bird" Final Episode Sunday At 10PM. Aired 5-6p ET
Aired March 29, 2025 - 17:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[17:00:12]
JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jessica Dean in New York.
We are continuing to monitor breaking news out of Myanmar, where rescue operations are underway following a devastating earthquake on Friday.
The death toll in Myanmar rising to more than 1,600 today with fears that many more victims are still trapped under rubble. We have more on that story ahead.
But first, tonight, developing: a federal judge in Boston issuing an order to stop immigration officials from deporting a Turkish grad student from Tufts University. The 30-year-old was confronted and arrested while walking on a sidewalk earlier this week.
You're looking at video of that moment right there.
CNN correspondent Rafael Romo is joining us now. Rafael, what's the latest development here?
RAFAEL ROMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Jessica.
Well, the only thing that's temporarily stopping U.S. immigration authorities from removing that 30-year-old PhD student is an order published by a Massachusetts district court. Judge Denise Casper wrote that Rumeysa Ozturk, who is currently in detention at a Louisiana facility, shall not be removed from the United States until further order from this court.
As you may remember Jessica, Ozturk was arrested Tuesday night near her home by six plainclothes officers who suddenly encircled her on the street near her apartment in Somerville, Massachusetts in the Boston area. Her attorneys say the Tufts University international student was
transported across multiple states before ending up at the Louisiana facility.
In a statement, Ozturk attorney Mahsa Khanbabai said the following about the federal judge's order. "This is a first step in getting Rumeysa released and back home to Boston so she can continue her studies. But we never should have gotten here in the first place. Rumeysa's experience," she said, "is shocking, cruel and unconstitutional."
Ozturk is one of several international university students facing deportation following a Trump administration order to crack down on pro-Palestinian demonstrations on college campuses.
This is what Secretary of State Marco Rubio had to say about these cases.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARCO RUBIO, SECRETARY OF STATE: Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're saying it could be more than 300 visas?
RUBIO: I mean, at some point, I hope we run out because we've gotten rid of all of them.
Why would any country in the world allow people to come and disrupt? We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist that tears up our university campuses.
And if we've given you a visa and then you decide to do that, we're going to take it away.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DEAN: I feel that, obviously, Secretary of State Marco Rubio there talking about his stance on all of this.
There are a number of these cases, international students whose visas are being revoked. What more can you tell us about those?
ROMO: Yes. There's one case that stands out, Jessica, that of a Russian scientist who was detained after, imagine this, failing to declare frog embryos -- yes, I said frog embryos -- upon returning to Boston from France, according to her attorney.
Kseniya Petrova, who works at Harvard Medical School, has been detained for weeks and could be deported. Her attorney, Greg Romanovsky, says his client faces deportation to her native country, where he says she would face immediate arrest over her previous outspoken opposition to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Romanovsky says she has an immigration court hearing in Louisiana in early May, Jessica. DEAN: All right. Rafael Romo, thank you very much.
And joining us now is Democratic Congressman Seth Moulton from Massachusetts. Congressman, thanks so much for making time. We appreciate it.
REP. SETH MOULTON (D-MA): Glad to be here.
(CROSSTALK)
DEAN: I know that you, along with your colleagues, signed a letter this week seeking some answers about that case we were just talking about in your -- in your home state of Massachusetts, Tufts University. Have you gotten any answers?
MOULTON: No, we have not. We've not even gotten anything at all. And when you watch that video, it looks like a video from Iran or from some other brutal dictatorship. And you listen to the Secretary of State and he sounds like China's foreign minister -- the Chinese Communist Party.
I mean this is what authoritarian regimes do, communist regimes do. They try to control people's speech.
We're the United States of America. You may not agree with what these people are saying but freedom of speech is foundational to our democracy. And those rights apply to everyone here.
DEAN: Have you gotten any information that indicates that -- that she threatened anyone, that she accosted anyone, put anyone in physical harm, anything that would be grounds for detention like this?
[17:04:52]
MOULTON: No. We've got nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Apparently, she wrote an op-ed supporting the Palestinians. I mean again, you may not agree with that cause, but this is basic freedom of speech. So we've gotten zero explanation, zero justification.
And you heard the Secretary of State. All he could say is that she's an activist. Well, guess what? America supports activists because that's the First Amendment to the Constitution allowing freedom of speech.
DEAN: And so, obviously, I don't have to tell you, you guys are in the minority there in the House. What kind of power do you have in terms of oversight right now for this sort of thing?
MOULTON: Look, there are a lot of things we can't do because we can't just do Congress' job ourselves because we're in the minority. The Republicans are completely forgetting their constitutional duties here to keep a check on the executive.
What I can do is try to get Republicans behind the scenes to do their jobs. I've been doing that. It hasn't had much success, although there are a couple of places where I've gotten Republicans to stand up.
We also need to protect the other branch of government, the judiciary that, of course, is also responsible for keeping a check on the other two branches, right. And the executive branch under Trump is trying to undermine the judiciary.
These cases are going to take some time to play out. This -- we're hearing that this Harvard Medical School scientist, for example, who's already been detained for several weeks, is not even going to have a court hearing until early May.
In the meantime, she'll just be in detention wondering about whether she might see her life come to an end should she get sent back to Russia.
But in the meantime, Trump is working hard to undermine the judiciary, literally scare law firms away from even taking these cases.
So this is an all-out assault on democracy. We've got to strengthen the judiciary, and we've got to try to get the Republicans to do their job, all the while making sure Democrats are at a place to win the midterms and we can put an end to this lawlessness across the country.
DEAN: I know you said -- you said encouraging Republicans to stand up behind the scenes. What is -- are you talking to your colleagues and trying to change their mind? What is that? What does that look like?
MOULTON: Yes, I mean literally I mean, that's one of the only things we can do here because they control the House and the Senate. So I had a conversation, you know, early morning in the House gym at about 6:45 with a Republican colleague a few days ago. And I just pleaded to him. I said -- I said, look, I was talking specifically about the case with the Secretary of Defense and how dangerous that classified information disclosure was to our troops, specifically to the pilots who, you know, the enemy could have known were flying over those targets at a certain exact time and therefore could have shot them down.
And he said, look, Seth, I respect your point of view. I hear you, and I've heard this from a bunch of other people, so I'll consider it.
(CROSSTALK)
MOULTON: But then he didn't do anything. And why didn't he do anything? Because he's scared.
You'll notice he never argued with me. He didn't try to make the case you're hearing on Fox News that this wasn't actually a dangerous disclosure. It absolutely was. He didn't even contest that.
These guys are just scared. They're just scared of the Trump administration. And you know what? If you're scared, you shouldn't be in a position of leadership in the United States Congress.
DEAN: I do want to ask you about this trip to Greenland that the vice president took. Obviously, Vice President J.D. Vance was there. I want to listen to a clip of what he said. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Our message to Denmark is very simple. You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland. We can't just ignore this place. We can't just ignore the president's desires.
This has to happen. And the reason it has to happen, I hate to say it, is because our friends in Denmark have not done their job in keeping this area safe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DEAN: Do you agree with him?
MOULTON: Well, actually, if the question is whether Denmark has done well by the people of Greenland, then I guess he ought to ask the people of Greenland and they don't want the United States to take them over. So that's a pretty simple answer to that question.
I think the bigger question is, do we take Trump and Vance seriously here? I think for a long time we just laughed off this crazy attempt to stab a NATO ally in the back, you know, to undo the work of the greatest generation when they sacrificed their lives in World War II to establish NATO and keep Europe safe, keep us safe as well.
Remember, the only time NATO has gone to wars on our behalf in Iraq and Afghanistan. And yet you do have to take this seriously because wannabe dictators like Donald Trump, they tell you what they're going to do.
You know, Putin said he was going to invade Ukraine. A lot of people didn't take him seriously. Xi Jinping says he's going to take Taiwan. I'll tell you, I sit on the China committee. We have to take that seriously.
And now we have to take our crazy wannabe dictator's whims on Greenland seriously. He actually wants to do this.
DEAN: Yes.
(CROSSTALK)
MOULTON: And it's going to undermine alliances in Europe for a generation if he succeeds.
[17:09:48]
DEAN: I do want to play a clip of him kind of explaining why he wants to do this. Go ahead.
MOULTON: Ok.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We need Greenland very importantly for international security. We have to have Greenland. It's not a question of do you think we can do without it? We can't.
If you look at Greenland right now, if you look at the waterways, you have Chinese and Russian ships all over the place.
And we're not going to be able to do that. We're not relying on Denmark or anybody else to take care of that situation. And we're not talking about peace for the United States. We're talking about world peace.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DEAN: And Congressman, I know you mentioned this. You do serve on that select committee on China. So I know you really -- read a lot about this and study this as well. What are these concerns with Russia and China's interests there in the Arctic? Are those real? And is it just that that you believe he's going about this in the wrong way?
MOULTON: The irony is that they're actually real because of climate change, which is reducing the ice in the Arctic, making it much easier for ships to travel. And Russia is establishing a lot of bases up there.
Yes. Those are real security concerns. And the way America has addressed serious national security concerns for decades is to enlist our allies help because we don't have the forces to put everywhere around the globe.
So if Trump is so concerned about Russia and China, then does he want to take over Poland because they border Russia? Does he want to take over India because they border China? Does he want to take over Mongolia? Kind of in between the two.
I mean, this is just absurd. That's not how the United States operates. It's a dumb way to conduct foreign policy, and it doesn't strengthen our national security.
It actually puts our national security at risk, because our greatest strength is our allies. And when our allies can't trust us, they won't fight for us. They won't stand up to our adversaries. And all of that makes America much less safe.
DEAN: And I know you -- you were talking about the fallout around this, this Signal chat and what that has brought forth. And you trying to convince your Republican colleague to do something about it, to hold somebody accountable and yet that has not happened thus far.
Do you expect anyone to be held accountable for that?
MOULTON: Look, in a perfect world, every single national security professional on that Signal chat would be fired because any single one of them should have spoken up and said, whoa, whoa, whoa, stop this right now. This is dangerous for our troops.
But since we're unlikely to fire all of them, we ought to start with the one who is most incompetent, which is kind of hard to judge here, but I think that's Secretary Hegseth. And that's why I've been focused on him.
Because at the end of the day, he's the one who actually put the target information, the times that those pilots were going to be flying over the enemy. He's the one who actually put that on this completely unclassified system. That is a gross violation of the law.
And what an example that sets for our troops. I've heard from a lot of Marines I've served with over the past several days who said, how on earth are we going to expect our Marines, our troops under our command, to follow the rules that the Secretary of Defense has just flagrantly violated and is not being held accountable for?
That's not leadership by example. That's dangerousness -- dangerous disregard for our troops at the very top of the food chain at the -- at the Department of Defense.
DEAN: And before I let you go, I do want to ask you about Governor Gavin Newsom, who was speaking with Bill Maher and he essentially said, described the Democratic Party as toxic right now.
And I know that you've been trying to find a new way forward. A lot of Democrats have. You've been very vocal about what that might look like. I talked to you, I think, I don't know, maybe a month or two ago when it was the beginning of the administration.
How do you feel about it now? And what do you what have you learned in the last couple of months, and how -- where do you see this going? Is it toxic right now?
MOULTON: Well, I don't know if I'd use the term "toxic", but whatever you call it, the Democratic Party has the lowest approval ratings in a generation, so we've clearly got some problems.
And there are a lot of people in our party, establishment Democrats, who just want to ride this out, you know, who think we're just going to coast to victory in the midterms, simply based on opposition to Trump.
Well, that's not leadership. That's not showing the American people that we hear you. We hear you when you voted against us and we're willing to change to earn your votes in the future.
That's what we need to do. We have an amazing opportunity as Trump is wrecking the economy to show that Democrats can be strong on the economy.
But let's show our plan. We have an amazing opportunity to say that we can reform government when everyone knows government is broken and Elon Musk is taking a chainsaw not to reform government, but to just eliminate it.
[17:14:45]
MOULTON: We have huge opportunities. We should be the party of patriotism, of strength on national security. I've just been talking about how weak Donald Trump is on national security; how he won't fire a Secretary of Defense who grossly violates the law and puts our troops at risk. We should be capitalizing on that.
But we're not going to do that if we just sit back and coast; if we don't say to the American people we heard you in the last election, and we're willing to make some changes. We're going to listen to you and get back in touch with the majority of Americans.
So let's show some leadership here and take the party forward when we have this amazing opportunity to show that the Democratic Party can lead America for a generation after this reckless lawlessness under Donald Trump.
DEAN: All right. Congressman Seth Moulton, thanks for your time. We appreciate it.
MOULTON: Good to see you.
DEAN: Still ahead, rescuers digging through rubble, hoping to find survivors after the worst earthquake in Myanmar in more than a century. The death toll already at more than 1,600 people and there are fears it may rise sharply.
We'll have more when we come back.
[17:15:47]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DEAN: Back to our breaking news out of Myanmar, where more than 1,600 people have been killed in a catastrophic earthquake and we likely do not know the true toll yet in human lives. Rescue teams are in a race to save thousands more who are trapped under that rubble.
The devastating 7.7 magnitude quake hitting on Friday with shockwaves felt hundreds of miles away from the epicenter.
CNN's Will Ripley has the latest now.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: In earthquake ravaged Myanmar, families sift through the rubble, searching for signs of life. All too often, finding death.
"Mother, I'm your son. May you please go to a proper abode," says this man, holding his mom's lifeless hand.
One of many devastating scenes across the crippled city of Mandalay. Damage stretches across entire neighborhoods; homes and historic buildings reduced to rubble. Buddhist monasteries, places of peace and reflection now piles of debris.
Geologists say the massive 7.7 earthquake had the energy of hundreds of atomic bombs. Myanmar's worst quake in more than a century, hitting right during Friday prayers. Many mosques collapsed, trapping Muslim worshipers inside. After several years of brutal civil war and largely self-imposed
isolation, the leader of Myanmar's military junta surveyed the devastation, making a rare plea for international aid now slowly beginning to arrive from China, Russia, India, other countries have also pledged support.
For this impoverished nation, help cannot come quickly enough. The 7.7 magnitude earthquake and its powerful aftershocks likely leaving parts of the nation uninhabitable.
With severe damage hundreds of miles from the epicenter, including in Thailand's capital city of Bangkok, skyscrapers swaying so violently, rooftop pools briefly became waterfalls.
And this 30-story high-rise under construction near a popular weekend market collapsed without warning, likely trapping dozens inside.
Here in Bangkok, heavy machinery is now sifting through the rubble of that collapsed skyscraper. They do have the resources and the manpower for a massive disaster response.
But with each passing hour of not finding anyone alive in all that rubble, hope for the families is fading.
Search and rescue teams are doing everything they can. Sniffer dogs picking up possible signs of life. Giving hope to this wife and mother of two who was working in the building with her husband of 30 years, but stepped outside for a break just before the quake.
"I'm looking for my husband," she says. "He's trapped inside. Until I see his body, I still have hope."
Drone footage captures the scale of the collapse, a tangled mass of steel and concrete where rescuers continued searching all day Saturday and only one dead body recovered.
"I'm praying my mom and sister are among the survivors," she says. "But I see how fast the building went down. It's hard to hold on."
Hope is still alive here, but barely.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
RIPLEY: And here in Bangkok, rescue efforts are continuing here, basically around the clock. And you can see now they're starting to use more of that heavy machinery as they sift through that pile of rubble.
Hope continues to fade that they're going to find anybody alive inside, which may be why they're now deciding to use those bulldozers.
Initially, they've been afraid to use them because they were afraid it could actually upset the rubble if there were people actually inside, Jessica.
DEAN: Just such devastation. Will Ripley, reporting from Bangkok, thank you for that.
Still ahead tonight, President Trump targeting law firms that once had cases against him. Top attorneys in the country now being forced to decide between giving in to his demands or fighting back and risking a blow to their bottom line.
You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.
[17:24:25]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DEAN: The Trump administration's efforts to target some of the country's biggest law firms may be hitting a roadblock for now. On Friday, two separate judges issued temporary orders blocking parts of the president's executive orders just hours after the firms Jenner and Block, and Wilmer Hale sued the administration.
Both of these firms have connections to former special counsel Robert Mueller, who led the investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election.
And joining us now, CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig, to talk more about this.
Hi, Elie. Thanks for being here.
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Glad to be with you, Jess.
DEAN: Yes.
HONIG: Beautiful day out but I will always make time for you.
DEAN: Well, we do appreciate it because it is sunny out there today and very nice.
But this is the third time a judge has blocked an executive order targeting a law firm. I'm just curious if you expect that Trump's executive orders will withstand this legal scrutiny.
HONIG: No. I think Donald Trump is going to continue to lose in courts as he's done thus far on a temporary basis.
[17:29:49]
HONIG: Because first of all, what the president is trying to do to these law firms is so flagrantly unconstitutional.
It runs up against the First Amendment right to freedom of speech by punishing these law firms for positions they've taken; freedom of association by punishing these firms for who they employ; freedom to have due process of the clients, the right to choose counsel of preference. So there's a lot of constitutional problems with what Donald Trump is doing here.
Beyond that, remember, the people who are deciding these cases are judges. They're all lawyers. And to me, this is an issue that goes beyond politics or ideology.
I think judges are going to understand quite clearly that what the president is doing here goes to the heart of lawyering and our legal system itself.
So -- and by the way, if you want a quick snapshot of that, the two cases you alluded to yesterday, both of those judges were George W. Bush appointees who put this on hold.
So I think Trump is going to lose across the board in the courts here.
DEAN: So I just want to make sure I'm understanding this, right?
Because, to me, it just reads like this. He is going after private law firms that have connections to people either he didn't like or who prosecuted -- you know, Robert Mueller, who worked on cases that perhaps included him or prosecuted him.
Is that it? Is that what we're dealing with here?
HONIG: So, right. Let's understand what exactly is happening. What the president has done is issue a series of about a half dozen proclamations over the last several weeks.
Each one names a law firm and then claims it was engaged in dangerous or illicit activities without being specific.
But then what Trump goes on to say in these proclamations is the sin that each of these firms committed is they either hired or used to employ somebody who offended him, somebody who worked on the Mueller case, Jack Smith, in one example, or they've advocated for causes that Donald Trump does not like.
And so, as a result, what Trump is doing in these orders is a couple of things. First of all, he's saying any lawyers who work for these firms lose their security clearances, cannot step foot into DOJ or any other government building agencies, SEC, et cetera, which essentially makes it impossible for those lawyers to do their jobs.
And beyond that, what Trump is saying is, if you are a private company and you have government contracts, let's say you're a big defense contractor and you're using one of these firms, you might lose your government contract.
So what that's causing is certain clients that potentially say, well, boy, why would I use this firm that's on the bad list when I can just go use some other firm? So it's a real threat to the bottom line of these law firms.
DEAN: And there are a couple of law firms who have gotten into what the president has described as, quote, "settlements," but essentially agreed to these pro bono hours for the government in order to avoid this.
Tell us about that.
HONIG: Yes. The phrase "settlement" is pretty euphemistic here.
DEAN: Yes.
HONIG: Both of these firms that -- that struck these deals did so only under an extreme amount of pressure. And look, there's been a lot of criticism of those two firms, which I share.
Now, on the surface, it sounds like, OK, well, they're going to do pro bono work. I mean, that's great. Everyone loves pro bono work. It's free. Pro bono work for important causes.
But the catch here, the reason this is such a problem is they've agreed to do, in one case, $40 million, in another case, $100 million worth of pro bono work for causes that the administration approves of.
And trust me, I've worked -- I worked at Covington and Burling, which is one of the firms, not one of the firms that bailed out, but one of the firms that's been targeted.
You do all sorts of pro bono that maybe politicians don't like, maybe the president doesn't like. It's part of the job.
And what the firms who've bailed out have done is essentially invite the government into their boardroom, into their decision making. And I think it sets a terrible precedent. And I think those firms deserve some criticism.
DEAN: Is this essentially like a shakedown?
HONIG: Yes. I mean, I think that's exactly what this is. What Trump is doing, look, he's very good at identifying the vulnerability. And Trump understands these firms, they're private entities. They're corporations. They're profit driven.
And so if you put a firm in a position where they're going to start losing major blue-chip clients, then they have two choices. One is to surrender, as with the two firms we just talked about, or the other is to go into courts, as other firms have chosen to do. But there's risk involved in that, too.
So I think the firms that are giving in here are clearly doing so only under extreme amounts of pressure and duress.
DEAN: All right, Elie Honig, as always, thanks for that analysis, giving us that context. We appreciate it.
HONIG: You bet.
DEAN: Still ahead, Hamas may be open to freeing more hostages. We're going to have details on a new ceasefire proposal and how Israel is responding.
[17:34:19]
You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DEAN: Breaking news as the FAA says there are no survivors after a plane crashed into a Minnesota neighborhood. This happened in Brooklyn Park. That's outside Minneapolis.
The plane -- the plane was flying from Des Moines to Minneapolis when it crashed into a home there. Fire officials aren't saying how many people were on the plane, but they do say no one on the ground was injured. The FAA and NTSB are both investigating tonight.
Tonight, sources telling CNN Hamas has agreed to a new ceasefire proposal by Egypt. Hamas offering to release five hostages, and in exchange, it wants to revert to the recently concluded ceasefire conditions, including reentry of humanitarian aid to Gaza and negotiating a permanent end to the war.
Israel, confirming it has now sent a counter proposal. And it comes as Israel issued new evacuation orders in Gaza after resuming the war and as Hamas faces it's boldest challenge yet, as hundreds of Gazans are protesting across the enclave demanding an end to Hamas' 18-year rule there.
[17:40:00]
Aaron David Miller is the former Middle East coordinator at the State Department. He's now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Aaron, thanks so much for being here with us.
I want to start first with this new ceasefire development. I think when we hear things like this, our next question is, will this go anywhere?
AARON DAVID MILLER SENIOR FELLOW, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE: Well, you know. And we've had this discussion before and it's tragic for the Palestinian civilians in Gaza, for the hostages and their families.
But these negotiations, as we've talked about, Jessica, only have two speeds, slow and slower. And on this one, they're punctuated by heavy duty Israeli military activity, which has claimed far too many, again, Palestinian civilian lives.
And a March 2nd, basically, boycott -- not a boycott, but no humanitarian assistance has been getting into Gaza since March 2nd.
So you have pressure tactics building. Hamas rejected what the U.S. had put on the table weeks ago to release 10 living hostages and 10 ones who were not living in exchange for two months. They rejected it.
Then they fell back on releasing one American that appears to be alive, Edan Alexander. A number of hostages that aren't.
So now you have Hamas under great pressure. And the demonstrations clearly, which are unprecedented in terms of their size and duration, is clearly playing a role in pushing Hamas to the negotiating table.
DEAN: And I do want to get to those in just a moment.
But before we -- we get to that, I am curious, just to close this -- this loop here, what might an Israeli counter proposal look like? I mean, I guess what I'm asking is how serious do you think the Israelis will take this?
MILLER: I think seriously, although it really will depend on how -- how seriously the Trump administration wants to close this deal now.
You've got 59 hostages, roughly half of whom all males, mostly IDF. Half of whom the Israelis believe are still alive.
And I think that the counter proposal is going to be for additional live hostages and probably a restriction of how long the ceasefire is to last.
I think that's where we are right now. The Israeli security, there'll be security consultations tonight.
Hamas wants this over in the next couple days. You have the Eid el- Fitr, which brings Ramadan to a close, Sunday, Monday. They'd like to do this for their constituents, I suspect, again, under pressure.
But I don't think they're going to make that deadline. So there's more negotiating, I think, that is going to happen.
DEAN: And I do want to ask you about these protests. This is a rare challenge to Hamas to see people, these Palestinians, openly protesting them in the streets.
What kind of -- what kind of role does that play in this dynamic? And were you surprised to see these?
MILLER: I think everybody was surprised. They appear to be organized by a group called Bednash, We Want to Live. Now they have protested in 2019, in response to high prices in Gaza and again in 2023 against Hamas rule.
These are Fatah, that is, say, Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah adherents. I think that in both of those earlier cases, though, they led to severe arrests and beatings.
Here, Hamas, I think, had no alternative but to allow them to proceed. The last thing they want to do, you would think, is to be killing or arresting or beating Palestinian civilians against the galactic misery that Hamas has caused over the course of the last 15 months to the Palestinian civilian population of Gaza.
So significant they seem to have come to an end. That may mean that Hamas is -- is clamping down and wants to arrest additional members.
But I think it reflects what you and I know to be the commonsense reality here. Hamas had maybe 25 to 30 percent of the popularity in Gaza before October 7th. That's probably down roughly to a fifth right now.
Corruption in Hamas rule, mismanagement, governance problems and of course, the reality that the tunnels provide tremendous sanctuary for Hamas fighters.
But not for the Palestinian civilians of Gaza, who have taken a tremendous toll as a consequence of Israel's determination to prosecute this war against Hamas.
And I'm fearful and concerned that -- that military campaign is far from over.
DEAN: So we will see. We'll see if there is more to come here.
Aaron David Miller, thanks so much. Good to see you.
MILLER: Jessica, good to see you as well.
[17:44:46]
Still ahead, more than 100 migrants expelled from the U.S. not sent back to their home country, but to Panama. We're going to go to the shelter where they're staying.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DEAN: More than 100 migrants from Afghanistan, Russia, Iran and other nations were expelled from the U.S. But instead of being sent back to their home countries, they we're taken to Panama.
CNN's Omar Jimenez went there to the shelter where many of the migrants are staying and spoke to them about what is now an uncertain future.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So, we're on our way to a shelter right now here in Panama City, Panama, where migrants are caught in this sort of Trump created limbo where they've been deported from the United States but they also can't go home.
[17:50:02]
"AMBO", MIGRANT FROM CAMEROON: I left Cameroon due to political issues. It is either I will be sentenced dead or I will spend the rest of my life in prison.
JIMENEZ (voice-over): Life for Ambo, as she asked to be called, is now this shelter. She's among the dozens of migrants here from places like Afghanistan, Russia, China and more.
(on camera): These are all people who say they can't go home because they fear either persecution or potentially being killed.
(voice-over): Ambo didn't want her face identified on camera. She says she arrived at the U.S. Mexico border on January 23rd, hoping
to make a case for asylum. The U.S. eventually put her on a plane, and she thought she was being transferred to another American immigration facility until they landed in Panama.
"AMBO": We're asking them. Why are they bringing us to Panama? Why are we in Panama?
JIMENEZ: It was actually part of the Trump administration's mass deportation plan, which it has pressured Latin-American countries, like Panama, to help with.
The Panamanian government then took these migrants to a hotel in Panama City, guarded by tight security, the migrants say, with little to no access to outside communication.
"AMBO": Maybe the immigration from the U.S. has come to Panama to listen to our stories, why we went there, maybe they were --
JIMENEZ (on camera): So, you still had hope --
"AMBO": Yes.
JIMINEZ: -- that someone from the United States would come and fix the situation?
"AMBO": Yes. Yes.
JIMENEZ (voice-over): Her optimism was shattered.
"AMBO": It shouldn't just, like, abandon us like that without telling us what we have done wrong. It becomes very, very difficult and confusing to us. I've left my children back home.
JIMENEZ: Others don't have anything at home to go back to.
(on camera): Why can't you go back to Ethiopia?
"SALAM", MIGRANT FROM ETHIOPIA: That is political. I cannot go back. I don't have family. They die already, our family. All of my family.
JIMENEZ (voice-over): Salam, as she wanted to be called, is from Ethiopia. She also didn't want her face on camera.
(on camera): Is this where you all sleep? In this room?
"SALAM": Yes. Everyone is in a bad situation.
JIMENEZ (voice-over): It's one of multiple places in Panama where these migrants are trying to navigate life in a country they've never known.
ARTEMIS GHASEMZADEH, MIGRANT FROM IRAN: We are lost here.
JIMENEZ: Artemis Ghasemzadeh fled Iran.
GHASEMZADEH: I changed my religion in Iran. And the punishment of that is maybe a long prison or, at the end, is death.
JIMENEZ: She was seen in this February photo from "The New York Times" with the words "help us" written on the hotel window where these migrants were first taken. They were then moved to a location hours outside the city.
(on camera): Over 100 of the migrants that were sent here to Panama City were then taken to a remote jungle camp, away from the resources of Panama City, but also, for the most part, away from effective means of communication.
GHASEMZADEH: The food was really disgusting. The bathroom was really dirty. No privacy. No door.
"SALAM": The water -- even if you will take shower, it's itchy. You can see my leg --
JIMENEZ: Wow.
"SALAM": All my body is like this.
JIMENEZ (voice-over): Through every step along the way, attorneys for these migrants argue their rights were violated.
SILVIA SERNA ROMAN, REGIONAL LITIGATOR FOR MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA: When they got to America, and when they got to Panama, they were never allowed to speak to an official that wanted necessarily to hear their story and their circumstance.
And so even though they all claim to be asylum seekers, they have never had the right to be heard.
JIMENEZ: In early March, the government released the over 100 migrants from the remote jungle camp but gave them temporary permits to find another place to go or risk deportation from Panama.
ROMAN: They might be, like involuntarily be taken back to their countries. And that's our concern.
JIMENEZ (on camera): If you went back to your country, do you think you would be killed?
"SALAM": Yes.
GHASEMZADEH: If I come back to my country, my government kill me.
JIMENEZ (voice-over): Ambo still dreams of America but has no idea how this nightmare will end.
"AMBO": I don't think I can stay in Panama. But now the point is, where am I going to go to?
Omar Jimenez, CNN, Panama City, Panama.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DEAN: The final episode of "TWITTER: BREAKING THE BIRD" follows Jack Dorsey's return to Twitter as CEO.
Here's a preview of that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was part of the board when we made him CEO again.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was on the CEO search committee, which was ironic being part of the board that fired me as CEO. It felt like that was the right thing to do at the time.
(APPLAUSE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Finally, we're back to this founder-led company. All the people who are like big Apple fans, you know, are like, yes, founder-led company. And Jack is going to be the person who takes us to these new heights.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There he is. He's walking in the door. He's right there.
(LAUGHTER)
[17:55:00]
JACK DORSEY, FORMER CEO, TWITTER: Good morning. Good morning.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Morning.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think there was a great deal of respect for Jack across the employee base. He thinks about things deeply on a Steve Jobs level. So there is some real changes that were palpable to the employees. Really, he was going to be one of us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As you all know, Twitter can't have inclusion on our platform in this type of company.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DEAN: Tune in. "Twitter: Breaking the bird." The final episode airs Sunday at 10:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific only here on CNN.
And you are in the CNN NEWSROOM. More news when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
