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Death Toll Grows in Hong Kong Fire; Immigration Crackdown?; D.C. Shooting Investigation. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired November 27, 2025 - 13:00   ET

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

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BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: We're learning new details in the shooting of two National Guard members just blocks from the White House, President Trump calling this an act of terror.

And the death toll from Hong Kong's deadliest fire in decades climbing to over 80 people. Three men who worked for a construction company have now been charged with manslaughter.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN HOST: And Russia's leader draws a line in the sand, Vladimir Putin saying the war in Ukraine won't end until that country gives up land that the rest of the world considers Ukrainian.

We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

SANCHEZ: We start this hour with the latest on what officials are calling a brazen and targeted attack in downtown Washington, D.C.

We have now learned the names of the two West Virginia National Guard members who were shot at point-blank range just blocks from the White House, the Justice Department identifying them as 20-year-old Sarah Beckstrom and 24-year-old Andrew Wolfe. We understand they have undergone surgery and remain in critical condition.

JIMENEZ: We're also learning new details about the suspect.

Authorities say the 29-year-old Afghan national traveled across the country from Washington state to the nation's capital before the attack. We will have the latest on the investigation in a moment.

First, I want to get to CNN's Brian Todd, who's live at the shooting scene.

And, Brian, you're learning more about how this attack played out.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Omar and Boris.

We have important new information this afternoon on how the attack played out. We're going to get to what Jeanine Pirro said about that in just a second. But, first, we have access here that we have not had before to the actual spot where the shooting occurred.

I'm standing at the spot right now. And if you come over here with me, our photojournalist, Jay McMichael, and I are going to walk you over here. This area here -- excuse me, ma'am -- this is the bus shelter where, according to officials, at least one of the Guardsman tried to take cover at.

And you can see that a Plexiglas panel here has been shot out. You can see the fragmented glass up there. This panel is gone, and I'm going to walk you over here to this planter. It appears here that there is a bullet hole here that entered here and exited here of this planter.

There's another planter over here. Jay's going to shoot you a closeup of that. And there's another planter here where this part has been removed. I'm going to walk you over here to show you that part of the planter that was removed.

And, in the meantime, you see a makeshift memorial here to the victims of, people laying flowers and an American flag. Over here is a part of that panel that was actually removed, and you can see additional bullet holes here, one here, one here. And this looks like some evidence that was handled by authorities as they started to process the scene last evening.

So, in addition to that, we have new information from Jeanine Pirro. She is the U.S. attorney general for the District of Columbia. Earlier today, she spoke to us about the sequence of gunshots. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEANINE PIRRO, U.S. ATTORNEY FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: A lone gunman opened fire without provocation, ambush-style, armed with a .357 Smith & Wesson revolver. One Guardsman is struck, goes down, and then the shooter leans over and strikes the Guardsman again. Another Guardsman is struck several times.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TODD: And both of those Guardsmen are now in critical condition at a local hospital. We have made inquiries with the hospital to learn more about the surgeries and about where they're being treated.

The hospital has not gotten back to us on that. As Boris and Omar mentioned, they're identified as Sarah Beckstrom, 20 years old, Andrew Wolfe, 24 years old. Those are the two Guard members who were struck yesterday in this attack.

Sarah Beckstrom has been in the Guard since 2023. According to officials, Andrew Wolfe has been in the Guard since 2019. Both of them, according to officials at the news conference, were sworn in yesterday. We believe that meant that they were sworn in not as new Guard members, but sworn in as deputies for the U.S. Marshals, which they have to do about every month -- guys, back to you.

SANCHEZ: All right, Brian Todd live for us in Washington, D.C.

We hope to learn a positive update on those Guard members at some point soon.

CNN senior national security reporter Zach Cohen joins us now.

Zach, take us through what we have learned about the suspect.

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, we're learning quite a lot about his background.

It's a 29-year-old Afghan national who came to the United States in 2021 as part of this program that was implemented by the Biden administration after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Now, it seems that why he was allowed to come to the U.S. in part was because of his work with the U.S. military and CIA.

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He was -- our understanding, he served in an elite counterterrorism unit that worked directly with U.S. intelligence and military units in Afghanistan, including active combat against Taliban forces at that time. And so there were thousands of those individuals who served in those roles that were evacuated when the Taliban started to rise to power after the U.S. left.

And it appears that was the basis for his immigration into the United States. Now, of course, several layers of vetting and -- took place after he got here. He was only temporarily allowed to come here at first. But this -- his background with the CIA and the intelligence community does seem to be the basis for his travel to the U.S.

JIMENEZ: So what was that vetting process actually like? Because obviously there were a lot of Afghans that were coming over as part of that Operation Allies Welcome.

COHEN: Yes, by all accounts, it should have been very extensive.

We know that, in that initial process, he would have been vetted by the U.S. government, including the CIA. And then once he was granted temporary asylum, as he applied for permanent status, he would have gone through a variety of different layers of vetting. Those include identity and background checks, biometric vetting, in-person interviews, assessment of an individual risk and eligibility under U.S. law.

So that's several layers. I mean, it's important to remember too the ultimate approval of his asylum application was granted under the Trump administration in 2025.

SANCHEZ: Important in the context of the president and allies saying that this was the policy of the previous administration to let folks in without vetting. Important to keep that in mind.

Zach Cohen, thank you so much. Let's get some perspective now with Donell Harvin. He is the former

head of homeland security and intelligence for Washington, D.C., also a member of the faculty at Georgetown University's Emergency Disaster Management Program.

Donell, thank you so much for being with us. Happy Thanksgiving. We're grateful that you could share some time.

I wonder what a review, as the president has said, of every migrant admitted to the U.S. under the previous administration would look like, as we have also learned that officials are going to pause any migration case related to Afghans pending further review. What does all of that entail?

DONELL HARVIN, FORMER D.C. CHIEF OF HOMELAND SECURITY AND INTELLIGENCE: That entails going through and interviewing, quite possibly, anywhere from 70 to nearly 100,000 people, depending on what reports you read.

It's got to be very clear to the audience that these Afghan asylum seekers who have come over have committed crimes at such a low, low rate. I was unable to find any major crimes that were committed by these individuals. These individuals and their family members served the U.S. service members abroad, helped save lives.

In fact, there's many documented cases of former servicepeople going over to rescue them even after the evacuation. What happens is that, once these individuals go through that layered process of vetting and they get into the United States, they're kind of free to move around the country at their will.

There's no further surveillance of them. There's no surveillance state of them. They're just like any other asylum seeker. They will go through their process and, throughout their process, they will have interviews and then they will be part of a normal, non-enhanced vetting.

What I believe that the administration is talking about now is some type of advanced vetting. The also -- the other thing I wanted to mention is that, when you interview these people, when they go through the vetting process, you're looking behind, right?

You're looking at their previous history, their ideology, who they have been associated with. That can't predict the future. And so this is the difficult part that the administration finds themselves in now.

SANCHEZ: Yes, especially as we have seen so many cases of people being radicalized through a number of different means, if this in fact turns out to be terrorism.

And that leads me to the next question. How is it that officials determine a motive accurately here? Because you have the administration saying that this was terrorism, but the investigators themselves have to piece that together to show evidence of it.

HARVIN: Yes.

In the absence of the surviving individual who's now under arrest cooperating, all reports saying he's not cooperating, they can still piece together their background, who they communicated with.

Boris, you and I have been on this topic for many, many times.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

HARVIN: Invariably, many of individuals who are radicalized and mobilized to violence have some type of bread crumb trails. We call that leakage.

They may have told someone. They may have intimated this online, spoken with someone, shown some type of signs. It's always some type of signs. People just don't wake up, drive across the country with a gun, and open fire on uniformed service members. So there's going to be something there to be able to find, even though he's not cooperating.

SANCHEZ: I wanted to go back to something that you alluded to a moment ago, and that is the suspect's previous relationship with the U.S. government and his work in Afghanistan, including with the CIA, according to Director John Ratcliffe.

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How do you read that relationship?

HARVIN: You know, everything I have read that's open source, available says that he served honorably and was trusted at a very high level.

Like, you don't get attached to a secret, top secret unit with the CIA and special operations if you haven't been vetted even before the evacuation, right? So they trusted this individual, quite possibly with their life, to make sure that they wouldn't leak any information to adversaries of what they're doing, their movements, what they're looking for.

And so something drastic has had to happen over the last three years since he's gotten here, Boris. This is really, really unprecedented. And in a in a year that the word unprecedented has been used an unprecedented amount of times, we need to just sit back and look at how bonkers this is that someone would actually open fire on U.S. service members.

I did some research before we came on. I haven't seen any incident of this in my lifetime, and I'm over 50 years old.

SANCHEZ: Donell Harvin, thank you so much for the perspective. Appreciate you.

HARVIN: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Still to come: President Trump vowing to intensify his immigration crackdown in the wake of this D.C. attack. We will talk about the steps he's promising to take next.

Plus: A survivor has been pulled from a smoldering Hong Kong high- rise more than 12 hours after the inferno began. We will take you live to China, where a criminal investigation is now under way.

JIMENEZ: And later: Russia's President Vladimir Putin says fighting will end if Ukraine does one big thing. We will tell you his demand -- that and much more coming up on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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JIMENEZ: President Trump is vowing to intensify his immigration crackdown following the shooting of these two Guard members in Washington, D.C. The suspected shooter has been identified as an Afghan national.

SANCHEZ: And the president is requesting that hundreds of additional troops be sent to D.C. even as legal challenges play out over the original deployment.

Let's go now to CNN senior White House correspondent Kristen Holmes, who's traveling with the president in Palm Beach, Florida.

Kristen, what's the latest from President Trump today?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, as you mentioned, President Trump is clearly going to go all in on some of his policies that already exist, particularly when it comes to immigration or cracking down on crime.

As we heard from him last night, he said essentially that he was going to ramp up his crackdown on immigration, saying that they were going to suspend any requests for visas from Afghan nationals coming to the U.S. They were going to go through the status of every Afghan on American soil currently, and then, on top of that, talking about sending these 500 National Guard troops to Washington, D.C.

That will be related to crime, as D.C. is the only place President Trump can really send the National Guard and relate it to crime because of its jurisdiction.

It'll be interesting to see how all of this plays out. But one thing again is clear. President Trump is going to be bolstering up and using this tragic incident to bolster up some of his policies, because, yesterday, when we were hearing him talk about immigration, he wasn't just talking about Afghans.

He wasn't just talking about this visa program. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: An example is Minnesota, where hundreds of thousands of Somalians are ripping off our country and ripping apart that once great state. Billions of dollars are lost and gangs of Somalians come from a country that doesn't even have a government, no laws, no water, no military, no nothing, as their representatives in our country preach to us about our Constitution and how our country is no good.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: And just to be clear, we have no indication from any of our sources or from any of the briefings that there was anything related to Somalians involved in this shooting.

But you can see there the kind of rhetoric that he's going to be using. Also, expect this to be the argument legally for President Trump to keep and expand those troops in D.C. This has been obviously a point of contention, a judge ruling that it was unlawful for those troops to be there.

The Trump administration has already appealed that and is noting this incident as a reason for needing more of those National Guard on the ground.

SANCHEZ: Kristen Holmes in Palm Beach for us, thank you so much.

Let's get some analysis now from pollster and communication strategist Frank Luntz.

Frank, great to see you, as always. Glad that you're joining us on Thanksgiving.

FRANK LUNTZ, POLLSTER: Yes, it shows you I have no life.

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SANCHEZ: That's not true.

LUNTZ: We're all here together.

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SANCHEZ: Yes, you're committed to...

LUNTZ: Maybe you have no life.

JIMENEZ: Yes, well, that's well-known. That's well-known.

SANCHEZ: You're committed to the work, Frank.

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SANCHEZ: First...

LUNTZ: It's true, because we're going to talk about the National Guard.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

LUNTZ: You all know that I teach at West Point... SANCHEZ: Right.

LUNTZ: ... and that I'm focused on what happens to the cadets, that they're shown the respect and appreciation that they deserve. Same thing for the military.

I was out yesterday within a few minutes of the shooting, just before, talking to the Guard who was there, trying to ask them, do you like being here? Are you being used properly? Is this the kind of mission that you approve of?

I could get nothing negative from them. And I got a sense of commitment that makes you proud to be an American, that they said, "We will serve on Thanksgiving, on Christmas, whatever it is." They would like to be home, but they're grateful to serve.

And in this whole discussion, it's important that we don't let it get so political and so partisan that we use it to defend our own points of view, rather than focus on the fact that these two people were struck down in the most hideous way possible...

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SANCHEZ: Yes.

LUNTZ: ... and that, at this moment in American life, we should be showing respect and appreciation to the people in uniform.

JIMENEZ: You know, to your point, before the shooting, there was so much debate obviously over whether the Guard should be here. I'm sure you did polling as well maybe over whether people believed that they were the right method to help -- as President Trump has said, to help reduce crime in Washington, D.C.

Based -- before this happened, because you're correct, we have got two people in the hospital right now and we're hoping for their recovery, but how did Americans view generally these National Guard deployments in -- attempts in various cities, but, of course, here in Washington, D.C.?

LUNTZ: I will show you the -- I apologize for interrupting.

I will show you the comparison. They had a real issue when the Marines were sent to Los Angeles, because they see the Marines as being an international force, not a domestic force, much less of a problem with the National Guard. And, in the end, it's how they behave, how they do their jobs. Are they too aggressive?

Do they take away people's constitutional rights? We have seen video of them acting in a bad way. But those are few and far between. The public says, number one, I have the right to be safe and secure in my neighborhoods, in my home, in -- when I go to work.

Number two is that nothing should threaten that right and I want it removed. But, number three, there is a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it. And we haven't had a conclusive moment to give us whether this is right or wrong.

But people do feel safer. And I want to make that point, because that's critical. You can disagree with the method, but if you feel safer around you, you're going to express it at the polling place and you're going to articulate that to others.

SANCHEZ: How do you see public sentiment potentially changing around these Afghan refugees and asylum seekers?

Because, soon after the withdrawal from Afghanistan, we saw a bipartisan wave of welcome, of wanting the folks that helped U.S. service members in Afghanistan to come to the United States as refuge from the Taliban. Now it seems as though that may be shifting.

LUNTZ: That's a perfect question.

And my answer is, if this is an isolated incident, if this happens once or twice, the public will see this as being random. If it happens a third time -- and I actually mean that specifically. Once...

SANCHEZ: Three.

LUNTZ: Once is that it just happened. Twice is a trend. Three is proof. So we don't know what's going to happen in the coming weeks or months. That's what I'm going to be looking for.

JIMENEZ: And, generally speaking, since taking office in January, Trump has -- President Trump has enacted pretty sweeping changes to U.S. refugee policy and foreign assistance.

He campaigned largely on doing those types of measures as well. Just in the polling you have done and the folks you have spoken to, have people generally been supportive, not so much -- the border is one thing, but sort of the pulling back of, again, some of these refugee programs and foreign assistance?

LUNTZ: We're split.

JIMENEZ: Yes.

LUNTZ: We want wide gates and tall fences. We want people to come here legally. We're still pro-immigrant, but we're pro-legal immigrant, not illegal immigrant.

And so the public would say, do whatever you have to do to keep people who are committing crimes out of the country. But for those who want to come here for the right reasons and have the right commitment, they would say yes.

Everything -- and I always feel awkward in doing this, responding, because it's all nuance. It depends on the context how the public feels. And I get beat up on by the Republicans because they all want it one specific way. I get beat up by the Democrats because they just want to condemn the president.

And the truth is, it's somewhere in the middle. SANCHEZ: All right.

JIMENEZ: Frank, appreciate you being here, as always. And happy Thanksgiving.

SANCHEZ: Committed to the job. You're not a loser.

(CROSSTALK)

JIMENEZ: I was going to say. I was going to say.

SANCHEZ: You're committed to the job. And we appreciate having you. We're grateful for you, Frank. Thanks so much for joining us.

(CROSSTALK)

LUNTZ: I appreciate it. Thank you.

JIMENEZ: Good to see you, Frank.

Ahead: multiple high-rises. We have been continuing to follow this story, unbelievable images out of Hong Kong. You see those high-rises still smoldering a full day after a deadly inferno ripped through the residential buildings, killing dozens and leaving many more missing. We will tell you what we know about the three men arrested on suspicion of manslaughter.

SANCHEZ: Plus, we're learning more about the Guard members targeted in D.C., as the suspect accused of gunning them down at point-blank range is also in the hospital right now.

You're watching CNN NEWS CENTRAL. We will be right back.

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SANCHEZ: We have some brand-new eyewitness video showing just how quickly a massive fire ripped through a high-rise apartment complex in Hong Kong, killing at least 83 and leaving many missing. Watch this.

This is the moment the fire began. A building expert says that it surged 32 stories within five minutes. The buildings, notably, were wrapped in bamboo scaffolding and safety netting at the time as part of a renovation. Investigators are looking into what role that may have played.

JIMENEZ: But, clearly, I mean, you can see that video. It's just ripping through that bamboo. And this is the end result, today, more than 24 hours later, the building still smoldering.

Earlier, there was really a miraculous rescue, when firefighters saved an elderly man from the 31st floor of one of the towers.

I want to bring in CNN's Simone McCarthy, who joins us now from Beijing. So, Simone, a criminal probe has been launched and three people are

under arrest. What do we know about that?

SIMONE MCCARTHY, CNN SENIOR NEWS DESK REPORTER: That's right. So, they have been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter, with authorities accusing them of gross negligence.