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U.S., El Salvador Make Clear, Deported Man Won't Be Returned; Russian Attacks Sumy, Ukraine On Palm Sunday; Xi Jinping Touts China As Reliable Trade Partner In Southeast Asia; Israeli Strike Puts Gaza City Hospital Out Of Service. Aired 12-12:45a ET

Aired April 15, 2025 - 00:00   ET

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

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JOHN VAUSE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: The U.S. and El Salvador presidents play a bizarre round of pass the buck, ahead on CNN NEWSROOM.

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NAYIB BUKELE, EL SALVADORAN PRESIDENT: How can I smuggle a terrorist to the United States? I don't have the power to return him to the United States.

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VAUSE: As the fate of an innocent man hangs in the balance, wrongfully swept up by Trump's immigration crackdown, now in a notorious prison in El Salvador.

So much for ending the war in Ukraine in 24 hours.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is Biden's war. This is not my war.

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VAUSE: Ceasefire talks going nowhere two months after they began as Russia continues to target civilians.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One, two, three. Take up space.

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VAUSE: And Blue Origin goes pink for the first time launching an all- woman crew for a joyride into space.

ANNOUNCER: Live from Atlanta, this is CNN NEWSROOM with John Vause.

VAUSE: Three rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution were thrown under the bus Monday during a White House meeting between the U.S. and El Salvadoran presidents. Both leaders argued neither had the authority to order the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a father of three swept up in Trump's immigration crackdown and despite having no criminal history, flown from the United States to a maximum security prison in El Salvador. Even though the White House has admitted his forced deportation was a mistake. Even though the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week the administration must facilitate his return.

Donald Trump warmly greeted President Nayib Bukele, who describes himself as a cool dictator. When asked by reporters about returning Abrego Garcia, he said it was preposterous to, quote, "smuggle a terrorist" into the United States.

To be clear, Kilmar Abrego Garcia has not been tried or convicted of any crime. His constitutional right to due process was denied. And the White House has provided no evidence of his membership in a violent gang. Fourteen years ago, Garcia illegally entered the U.S., but in 2019 was granted protected status when a court ruled he faced credible threats of being killed by a local gang in El Salvador.

That alone should have prevented his deportation to that country. And while the Trump administration has admitted they got it wrong, for some unknown reason is refusing to make it right. Not only that, the U.S. president has again raised the prospect of another potential violation of the Constitution by sending U.S. citizens to prisons in El Salvador.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't know what the laws are. We always have to obey the laws. But we also have homegrown criminals that push people into subways, that hit elderly ladies on the back of the head with a baseball bat when they're not looking, that are absolute monsters. I'd like to include them in the group of people to get them out of the country.

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VAUSE: Our coverage begins with CNN's Jeff Zeleny reporting in from the White House.

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JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: U.S. immigration policy took center stage on Monday when El Salvador President Nayib Bukele visited the White House. The latest in a string of leaders to pay a visit to U.S. President Donald Trump. But it's the prison in El Salvador that has become such a focal point of the Trump administration's deportation plans.

Of course there's been much discussion of a 29-year-old Maryland father who was wrongly deported from the United States, has landed in the prison. The courts have intervened. The Supreme Court has said the U.S. government must facilitate his return. But in the Oval Office on Monday, neither president said they had any plans of doing so.

BUKELE: How can I return him to the United States? Like I smuggle him into the United States? Or what do I do? Of course I'm not going to do it. It's like, I mean, the question is preposterous. How can I smuggle a terrorist to the United States? I don't have the power to return him to the United States.

ZELENY: And President Trump also saying for the first time that he would like to see that El Salvadoran prison used to house homegrown criminals in America. That apparently would be American citizens who are convicted of crimes. He said he would only do so if the law allows. Of course, the law is very questionable on that front. Convicted criminals are housed in the United States.

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In any case, this leader meeting between the El Salvadoran president and the U.S. president certainly sent a message of who President Trump views as one of his strongest allies. The Central American leader, at 43 years old, clearly looks up to the American president. There is no doubt about it. He has called him one of his role models, and there is no doubt the prison in El Salvador has become central to the Trump immigration plan. In fact, President Trump said he would like to send more deportees there as soon as he can.

Jeff Zeleny, CNN, the White House.

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VAUSE: Deborah Pearlstein is an expert in U.S. constitutional law, a professor at Princeton University who also clerked for former Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens.

Thank you for being with us.

DEBORAH PEARLSTEIN, CONSTITUTIONAL LAW PROFESSOR, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: My pleasure to be here. Thank you.

VAUSE: So the immediate concern right now is the fate of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. For days, both the U.S. and El Salvador governments have had zero interest in doing the right thing. Here's the U.S. attorney general Pam Bondi.

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PAM BONDI, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: That's up to El Salvador if they want to return him. That's not up to us. The Supreme Court rule, President, that if, as El Salvador wants to return him, this is international matters, foreign affairs. If they wanted to return him, we would facilitate it, meaning provide a plane.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: That seems to be a very narrow, sort of verging on asinine reading of the Supreme Court ruling. This White House has negotiated prisoner swaps with Russia. If they wanted Garcia released, is there any doubt it would happen?

PEARLSTEIN: No, there's no question that I think if this White House asked El Salvador to return this man to the United States, El Salvador would do it. We're paying El Salvador, according to the administration, for the prisoners that they've accepted on our behalf. And indeed nothing that was said at the Oval Office meeting today by either the president or his staff or by the president of El Salvador suggests otherwise.

In fact, it seemed that they were all carefully avoiding the sort of direct question, have you asked the president of El Salvador to return him? Indeed, the president of El Salvador said, you know, I can't smuggle him back, but nobody is suggesting that he needs to be smuggled back into the country. I think it's straightforward, and I think it's the administration that's sort of inexplicably making this hard.

VAUSE: The Supreme Court is expected to weigh in again on this, and there are hopes for a more definitive ruling, leaving no doubt that the White House must actually bring Garcia home. If that ruling is then ignored, what happens then?

PEARLSTEIN: Then we're in a really difficult place in the United States. People here use the term constitutional crisis. It doesn't have any real historical or particular meaning except to, I think, underscore the seriousness of the matter. Hamilton, one of the framers of our Constitution, used to say, did say, you know, the courts are the least dangerous branch. They have neither the purse nor the sword. They don't have the power of the budget, which only Congress has. And they don't have their own law enforcement unit, which only the executive has.

The United States has been successful for this long in maintaining a judicial system because presidents have complied when the Supreme Court has told them to. Short of that, I think we're looking at a real dilemma with a very uncertain outcome about what happens to the rule of law in the United States.

VAUSE: Garcia was deported to El Salvador, along with more than 200 Venezuelans. All of them are accused by the Trump White House of membership in a notorious violent gang. But listen to a part of a report by CBS "60 Minutes." Here it is.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For 3 percent of those deported, it is unclear whether a criminal record exists, but we could not find criminal records for 75 percent of the Venezuelans, 179 men, now sitting in prison.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: All of them were denied due process. So if their constitutional rights had not been ignored, would this injustice have happened in the first place?

PEARLSTEIN: If their constitutional rights were not ignored, there would have been an actual proceeding to determine whether they were deportable from the United States or not. In a very few circumstances, people without criminal convictions can be deported, but they require hearings and evidence. And that is something that Mr. Garcia, in this case, had. And a judge determined that he was not deportable.

That was the status he held in the United States before he was flown under cover of darkness to El Salvador. That would be the status. That would be what all of them were entitled to. And as far as anybody can tell, none of them were afforded.

VAUSE: And right now, the White House, at the White House, rather, Donald Trump is urging El Salvador's president to build even more high security prisons. Here he is.

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TRUMP: As many as possible. And I just ask the president, you know, it's this massive complex that he built, jail complex. I said, can you build some more of them, please? As many as we can get out of our country that were allowed in here by incompetent Joe Biden.

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VAUSE: This is the third time Trump has raised the possibility of sending Americans to a foreign jail. It's considered unconstitutional under Article Eight, the cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause protects those convicted of crimes for excessively long sentences in prison in addition to ensuring that prison conditions meet certain health and safety standards.

The Supreme Court, though, ultimately decides what is cruel and unusual. Is there a specific law, a specific amendment which prevents a U.S. citizen being forcibly deported to a jail in a foreign country?

PEARLSTEIN: So there are several things. And before we get to the amendments, things like the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment and usually only arises in the criminal context, there is the enormously fundamental question of whether or not the president has the power to do any of this. Under our Constitution, right, there are always two questions. One, does the power exist in the federal government? And two, even if the power exists, is it in compliance with due process and the Eighth Amendment and every other requirement in the Constitution?

Here, when it comes to deporting American citizens to a foreign country with a criminal conviction or without a criminal conviction, there is no authority, no power under anything in the Constitution or any laws passed by Congress that would afford the president the power to do that. We can talk about why this might violate the First Amendment and the Fifth Amendment and the Eighth Amendment and others, and it likely would. But in the first instance, the claims of power that the president is asserting here are simply unprecedented.

VAUSE: Deborah, thank you so much for being with us. We really appreciate your insights. Thank you.

PEARLSTEIN: My pleasure.

VAUSE: Thirty-five people are now confirmed dead after a Russian missile strike on the Ukrainian city of Sumy. The deadliest attack of the war so far this year also left 100 others wounded. Some remain in a serious condition. According to the Ukrainian president, 20 buildings were damaged, including apartments, businesses and a court building. Hit the city Sunday morning when many were attending church services on Palm Sunday, one of the holiest days of the Christian calendar.

New remarks from the Kremlin indicate the attack was in fact deliberate. The Kremlin says it was targeting senior Ukrainian military commanders. President Donald Trump had initially suggested it was a mistake. Meanwhile, he still seems confused about which side actually started the war. One point Monday, the U.S. president acknowledged it was Vladimir Putin, but later cast blame once again on Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Have you spoken to President Zelenskyy, sir, about his offer to purchase more Patriot missile batteries?

TRUMP: He's always looking to purchase missiles. You know, he's against -- listen, when you start a war, you got to know that you can win the war, right? You don't start a war against somebody that's 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: A closer look now at the devastation in Sumy. CNN's Fred Pleitgen has our report. But a warning first, some of the images are difficult to watch.

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FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): Sumy, Ukraine, Palm Sunday shortly after 10:00 a.m. As folks were heading to mass, two missiles struck, killing and wounding scores.

We live in the city center, this eyewitness says. There is no military base. There are no soldiers here. It is simply a genocide. It is genocide.

After the explosions, mass carnage. First responders trying to help any survivors. Ukrainian officials said preliminary information indicates Russia used a missile with a warhead packed with cluster munitions, weapons designed to harm people in a wide area. Ukraine's president livid.

Only filthy scoundrels can act like this, he said. Today, many state leaders, diplomats, regular people with big hearts expressed their sympathy towards Ukraine. They condemned the Russian attack.

But while many world leaders denounced the attack, from President Donald Trump, a muted response.

TRUMP: I think it was terrible and I was told they made a mistake, but I think it's a horrible thing. I think the whole war is a horrible thing.

PLEITGEN: As mourners gathered in Sumy, laying flowers for the many victims, Moscow claims its army does not go after civilians and was instead targeting a high level military meeting.

There was another meeting of Ukrainian military leaders with their Western colleagues, the foreign minister says, who were either masquerading as mercenaries or I don't know who. There are NATO servicemen there and they are in direct control.

All this as the fighting on the front lines remains as brutal as ever. Russia claiming its forces continue to make steady progress while President Trump's diplomatic efforts to broker a ceasefire appear to have hit a roadblock.

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Unclear if any progress was made when Trump envoy Steve Witkoff met Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Friday. The Kremlin downplaying expectations.

The whole journey consists of small steps to recreate an atmosphere of at least minimal trust, the Kremlin spokesman says, to strengthen this mutual trust.

But the Ukrainians say they are losing faith in the Trump administration.

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): I believe, sadly, Russian narratives are prevailing in the U.S. How is it possible to witness our losses and our suffering to understand what the Russians are doing and to still believe that they are not the aggressors, that they did not start this war?

PLEITGEN: And there are few signs the war could end soon. Just hours after the attack in Sumy, drones struck the port town of Odessa, wounding several people and causing major damage to scores of buildings.

Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Berlin.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Still to come, Donald Trump has his sights set on his next target for tariffs as confusion continues to grow over exemptions. What's in, what's not, what's on hold, what isn't. Also, China's president capitalizing on tariff turmoil, visiting key trading partners in Southeast Asia with the message, we're dependable.

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[00:21:06] VAUSE: The Trump administration will begin looking closely at imports of semiconductors and pharmaceuticals this week. The first stage in imposing tariffs and possibly building a case of too much reliance on foreign production and putting national security at risk. Both industries are currently exempt from the 10 percent across the board tariffs on imports, which began 10 days ago.

The U.S. relies on Taiwan for high end semiconductors, a crucial part in auto manufacturing, one of the U.S. industries Donald Trump has promised to support. On Monday, he said additional short-term tariff relief for car makers could be coming.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I'm looking at something to help some of the car companies where they're switching to parts that were made in Canada, Mexico, and other places, and they need a little bit of time because they're going to make them here, but they need a little bit of time. So I'm talking about things like that.

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VAUSE: U.S. stocks rose Monday, boosted by the Trump administration's tariff exemptions on smartphones, laptops and other electronics. There's still a lot of uncertainty, though, over how long the reprieve will last and how the trade war with China will actually end.

Meanwhile, China's president is continuing his state visit to Southeast Asia, hoping to capitalize on the chaos caused by Donald Trump's tariff whiplash. Xi Jinping heads to Malaysia in the coming hours after visiting Vietnam Monday, where he aimed to cast his country as a more stable, more reliable economic partner than the United States.

Live now to Steven Jiang in Beijing.

It would not be hard to make that case right now, is it?

STEVEN JIANG, CNN BEIJING BUREAU CHIEF: That's right. You know, the message that China inviting Vietnam and other countries indeed to join them to fight, quote-unquote, "unilateral bullying from Trump" while work together to maintain this free trade system and the supply chains. That is going to be repeated and amplified throughout Xi Jinping's trip in Southeast Asia.

Now, the goal of his trip is very much twofold. Economically they're trying to really continue to diversify its footprint around the world, and it's no coincidence he started this trip in Hanoi, because Southeast Asian countries, as bloc, have replaced the E.U. and the U.S. as China's biggest trading partner, and Vietnam actually has the biggest share among all the Southeast Asian countries.

And so that's why Xi Jinping has signed 45 different deals and agreements with Vietnam, not only to sell, selling, for example, Chinese made airplanes, but also to invest by help them build infrastructure projects like cross border railway. But remember, this is happening at a time when China and Vietnam actually have long running territorial disputes in the South China Sea. So that really speaks to the second goal of Xi Jinping's trip.

That is, politically speaking, foreign policy wise, they're trying to pull more and more countries into its own orbit at a time when many of them are very much unsettled by Trump's tariff wars. So the message here is, you know, come to hang out with us instead of fear and pressure from Trump, we are on your side. We are showing you love. And that message perhaps a lot more resonant now than compared to a few weeks ago, as China continues to portray itself as the adult in the room, as the upholder of international order and norms.

But, John, these countries, including Vietnam, really have to be careful when it comes to how they tread, because they don't want to be perceived to be too close to China when they still have to deal with Trump to negotiate these pending tariffs. They don't want to provoke Trump more. And Trump, of course, has very much noticed this meeting between Xi Jinping and his Vietnamese counterparts, characterizing this meeting in Hanoi as China and Vietnam trying to figure out how to screw the USA as he put it, John.

VAUSE: Has a way with words, huh?

Steven Jiang in Beijing. Thanks for that, Steven.

When we come back, the last fully functioning hospital in Gaza City left badly damaged by an Israeli military strike. So why was it hit? And what's the impact now on an already failing health system across Gaza?

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VAUSE: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm John Vause. Let's check today's top stories.

The Trump administration and El Salvador's president are making it clear they will not return a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to a mega prison in El Salvador last month. Nayib Bukele insists he does not have the power to return Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to the United States.

[00:30:07]

The U.S. Attorney General, Pam Bondi says a recent Supreme Court ruling to facilitate the return means the United States would provide a plane, perhaps, but it was, quote, "up to El Salvador" to return him.

Officials say the brutal Russian missile strike in Sumy, Ukraine, on Palm Sunday has now killed 35 people. The Kremlin says it was targeting Ukrainian military commanders, meaning the attack was planned and deliberate.

Earlier, Donald Trump said he was told -- told Russia had made a mistake. The Trump administration will look into imports of medicines and

computer chips this week, arguing their foreign production could be a threat to national security. It could set the stage for new tariffs on those sectors in coming weeks.

Another Gaza ceasefire is on the table and is currently being considered by Hamas, which has promised a response as soon as possible.

Specific details are not known, but Hamas officials say any deal must include a permanent ceasefire and withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.

Across the territory, a humanitarian crisis continues to go from bad to worse, especially after a major Israeli airstrike on the weekend. Details now from CNN's Jeremy Diamond.

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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, what was the last remaining fully functioning hospital in Northern Gaza has now been put out of service by that Israeli airstrike on Sunday at Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City.

DIAMOND (voice-over): This is a hospital that once served about 1,000 patients a day, with a bustling emergency room that has only become busier as Israeli attacks have ramped up in Gaza.

But now only a few dozen patients are still being treated in that hospital, and the hospital isn't able to provide any emergency services whatsoever.

The Israeli military carried out an airstrike on this hospital on Sunday after giving about a 20-minute warning to that hospital.

DIAMOND: A boy with a head injury, who was evacuated in -- in those 20 minutes, actually died in that rushed evacuation process.

We know of no other casualties as a result of that strike.

DIAMOND (voice-over): The Israeli military said it carried out this strike because there was a command and control center, a Hamas command and control center, at this hospital. But they've provided no evidence to back up that claim.

And what they certainly haven't provided evidence of is the -- you know, military necessity and value, added value, of carrying out this strike, when compared. To the impact that this is going to have on Palestinian civilians and their access to health care in Northern Gaza.

The Israeli military, in just the last 24 hours or so, has struck about 35 target inside the Gaza Strip. And what we are also witnessing, of course, is these continued evacuation orders that are pushing Palestinian civilians into a ever-shrinking portion of the Gaza Strip, where they simply are not finding the resources that they need.

And a lot of that stems from another layer of pressure that is being brought to bear on Gaza. And that is the fact that Israel has not allowed anything into the Gaza Strip since March 2. No food, no water, no medical supplies.

And humanitarian officials are warning that we are rapidly approaching crisis levels inside of Gaza.

DIAMOND: Now, as all of this is happening; as we are seeing this noose being tightened around the people of Gaza, we are witnessing some reports of progress in these negotiations between Israel and Hamas to try and revive that ceasefire and to get more hostages out of the Gaza Strip.

We know, of course, that there are --

DIAMOND (voice-over): -- 59 hostages still believed to be held in Gaza. About two dozen of them are still believed to be alive, according to Israeli authorities.

DIAMOND: This deal that Hamas and Israel are now negotiating would be for the release of fewer than 11 Israeli hostages. Eleven is the number that the Israeli government has been demanding in exchange for a month-and-a-half-long ceasefire.

Hamas has been willing to offer far fewer than that.

The latest we learned was that an Egyptian proposal was on the table last week that would see the release of eight Israeli hostages from Hamas custody.

We understand that there is now perhaps a proposal for ten hostages to be released, but it's not clear whether that is something Hamas will go for.

We know that there has been a Hamas delegation in Cairo since Saturday. An Israeli delegation has not yet traveled there.

And so, while we certainly are seeing signs of optimism and momentum building once again, until we actually see those more concrete signals of true, meaningful progress, it's hard to tell right now if that momentum will actually lead to a deal.

[00:35:01]

Jeremy Diamond, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Well, they're back on Earth after an historic trip. In a moment, we'll have a look at the -- aboard the first all-female crewed space flight, as they went up and down. Back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) VAUSE: Hey, honey. I'm home. Billionaire Jeff Bezos there, greeting his fiancee after an historic space flight. Lauren Sanchez was one of an all-female crew launched into space Monday by Blue Origin, a company which Bezos owns.

[00:40:07]

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One, two, three -- taking up space!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Taking up space!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Taking up space!

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VAUSE: Also on board, singer Katy Perry, TV host Gayle King.

The trip took just 11 minutes in total. They were able to float around the cabin for just a few moments before returning to Earth. All of this just long enough for a place in history.

And they did so on-board Blue Origin's New Shepard, which has been designed and developed specifically for space tourism.

I'm John Vause, back at the top of the hour with more CNN NEWSROOM. But first, WORLD SPORT starts after a short break.

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