Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

President Trump Set to Meet with President Zelenskyy on Monday; President Putin Agrees to NATO-style Security Protections for Ukraine; Palestinians Flee Ahead of Israel's Planned Take Over of Gaza Strip; Nationwide Strike in Israel for Hostage Release; Three Republican-led States to Send National Guard to Washington; Outbreak of Legionnaires' Disease in New York; Key European Leaders To Joint Zelenskyy For White House Meeting; Hurricane Erin Intensifies To A Category 4 Storm; Tomorrow: Hearing Over Legality Of "Alligator Alcatraz"; ICE Transfer Flights Now Becoming Harder To Track. Aired 2-3a ET

Aired August 18, 2025 - 02:00   ET

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

[02:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN HOST: Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us here in the United States, around the world and streaming us on CNN Max. I'm Rosemary Church, just ahead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EMMANUEL MACRON, PRESIDENT OF FRANCE (through translation): If we are weak today with Russia, we are preparing the conflicts of tomorrow.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: The U.S. and Ukrainian presidents are set to meet face to face again at the White House. This time he is bringing European backup.

(VIDEO PLAYING)

Widespread protests across Israel, call for the return of hostages while the government threatens to invade Gaza City.

The Trump administration's new orders for policing the streets of Washington could have a ripple effect on students going back to school.

Plus, this certainly is not your typical sport competition, we'll explain.

Good to have you with us. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is gearing up for a consequential meeting at the White House where he will sit down with Donald Trump amid a renewed push to find a path to peace and an end to the war with Russia. The two leaders will meet for talks just days after the US President met with Vladimir Putin in Alaska. Security guarantees for Ukraine and Russia's demands on land concessions will be among the key topics.

President Trump appeared to preview the message he'll deliver in the hours ahead in a social media post. He said Zelenskyy can, quote, "end the war with Russia almost immediately if he wants to, or he can continue to fight." Before making clear, the Ukrainian president will have to give up Crimea and agree to never join NATO." Zelenskyy had his own message ahead of the talks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, PRESIDENT OF UKRIANE: We have to stop the killings. Putin has many demands, but we do not know all of them. And if there are really as many as we heard, then it will take time to go through them all. It's impossible to do these under the pressure of weapons. So, it's necessary to ceasefire and work quickly on a final deal. We'll talk about it in Washington.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Zelenskyy will be flanked by key European allies when he visits Washington, including the leaders of France, Germany, the U.K., Finland and Italy. America's top diplomat says European leaders are not coming to the White House to keep Zelenskyy from being bullied.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARCO RUBIO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: This is such a stupid media narrative that they're coming here tomorrow because Trump is going to bully Zelenskyy into a bad deal. We've been working with these people for weeks, for weeks on this stuff. They're coming here tomorrow because they chose to come here tomorrow. We invited them to come.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: French President Emmanuel Macron spoke ahead of his trip to Washington saying Europe and Ukraine must present a united front and offered this warning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MACRON (through translation): If we are weak today with Russia, we are preparing the conflicts of tomorrow and they will affect Ukrainians. We must enter a new diplomatic phase, one in which we assume responsibility for having and defending the interests of Europeans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: CNN's Kevin Liptak is in Washington and has more ahead of Monday's high-stakes meeting.

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: This meeting at the White House tomorrow between President Trump, President Zelenskyy and this whole host of European leaders is shaping up to be quite a consequential moment. I don't remember a time previously when so many top leaders came to this building on such short notice to convene with the American president, which I think gives you a sense, one, of the urgency that these European officials feel in bringing the war in Ukraine to an end, but also the urgency and even alarm they feel about being sidelined in how this conflict comes to a conclusion.

Now, the way we understand it is that President Trump and President Zelenskyy will meet individually with their delegations first before moving on to this larger format meeting with the European officials. One of the objectives I think they feel coming into this meeting is to learn more from President Trump about this idea of U.S. security guarantees for Ukraine once a peace agreement was reached.

[02:04:57]

Now, we did hear from the special envoy, Steve Witkoff, who was in that meeting with President Trump on Friday in Alaska with Vladimir Putin, about this idea of what he called Article 5-type security guarantees for Ukraine. Listen to what Witkoff said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE WITKOFF, TRUMP'S FOREIGN ENVOY: We agreed to robust security guarantees that I would describe as game-changing. We didn't think that we were anywhere close to agreeing to Article 5 protection from the United States in legislative enshrinement within the Russian Federation not to go after any other territory when the peace deal is, you know, codified. Legislative enshrinement in the Russian Federation not to go after any other European countries and violate their sovereignty.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIPTAK: Now Article 5 is the collective defense clause of the NATO charter essentially saying that an attack against one is an attack against all. The way Witkoff described it is that an Article 5-type security guarantee would be a workaround, that because Russia has said Ukraine can never join NATO, this would be a way for the U.S. and European countries to guarantee Ukraine's security so that once this peace deal is in place, Putin does not use the time to regroup and go after other parts of Ukraine in a few years.

But there are a lot of questions about how this would work, namely, what the U.S. role in that would be. President Trump has been pretty explicit that he doesn't foresee U.S. troops going into Ukraine, and so it doesn't seem exactly clear how the U.S. would back up this guarantee going forward and that will be, of course, a big question that a number of these European leaders will have when this meeting convenes on Monday.

They also, I think, want to know why President Trump walked away from his goal of achieving an immediate ceasefire when he was in that meeting with Vladimir Putin. Remember, as he was flying to Alaska, he said he would be very disappointed if that's not how the meeting ended and that there would be severe consequences for Moscow if there wasn't a ceasefire in place. Heading back from the meeting, he essentially walked away from that, saying that his goal was no longer an immediate ceasefire and saying that sanctions were no longer on his mind. And I think that shocked a lot of European leaders. You know, they

thought that they had entered those talks on the same page as the President. Now they want to know why the president has abandoned that. And when you listen to Witkoff and also the Secretary of State Marco Rubio today, they did try and explain what the president was talking about.

Witkoff said that in the president's view, the concessions that Putin made in that meeting brought them so close to a peace agreement that he thought an immediate ceasefire was no longer necessary. Rubio was much more guarded in his optimism. He said that Putin just wasn't going to agree to a ceasefire, and that, in his view, we are not at the precipice of a peace agreement. Kevin Liptak, CNN, the White House.

CHURCH: Jill Dougherty is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. She's also a CNN contributor and the author of "My Russia: What I Saw Inside the Kremlin." Always appreciate you being with us, Jill.

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Very glad to be here, Rosemary.

CHURCH: So European and NATO leaders will now join President Zelenskyy during his high-stakes meeting with President Trump in the coming hours. At the Alaska summit, President Trump failed to insist upon an immediate ceasefire and backed off his threat of severe economic consequences for Russia. But U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff did say that President Putin signaled that he might agree to robust security guarantees for Ukraine in a possible peace deal. Now, what does that mean to you exactly? And what do you expect these upcoming talks with Trump will achieve in the end?

DOUGHERTY: Yes. Well, I think there are almost more questions and answers at this point, obviously. And that's part of what Zelenskyy has to do along with the Europeans. They have to come sit down with President Trump and his team and try to figure out exactly where the president is coming from, what he agreed on with Mr. Putin, and then what does it mean for going forward.

So one of the big issues you're right, is the security guarantees. So as far as we understand, Mr. Trump has said that these -- or his team has said that these would be something like NATO Article 5 security guarantees for Ukraine. But they will not be NATO per se, it would be NATO-like. So what that means is essentially any attack on one is considered an attack on all. But the way these security guarantees would be worked out is not, as I said, you know, with a guarantee or some type of document with NATO.

[02:10:01]

It would be the individual countries, let's say, signing an agreement with the Ukrainians. And so that would be the United States guaranteeing Ukraine. There are a lot of questions about how that would work out in practice. But I think the hopeful thing is that Mr. Putin on Friday when he met with Trump said that he was open to some type of security to be provided, he didn't say guaranteed, but provided for Ukraine. So that could be something that could be very positive. lots of other questions on different parts of this.

CHURCH: Yeah, we'll certainly see if we get more details on that specifically. So, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the progress was made at the Alaska summit, but big areas of disagreement remain. And he says that in order for the war to end, both Russia and Ukraine need to make concessions. Now, what will that likely mean for Ukraine in terms of giving up land, considering Russia already occupies 20 percent of Ukraine's territory?

DOUGHERTY: Well, that is the other big question, because, you know, first take Russia, I don't see that they are giving up much of anything, and certainly territorially. So for Ukraine, the big issue is, you know, Russia at this point has, to a certain extent, not fully in every place, but five different areas that it holds. So as you mentioned, 20 percent of the land of Ukraine.

Now, if you take Crimea, that is a big issue. President Trump is now indicating that he thinks Russia ought to get Crimea. What does that mean? Is that -- do they de facto have it? Does the United States recognize, which would be a very big and very controversial step? And then going up to those other regions, like the Donbas, the big area, the industrial heartland of the east, the Russians don't hold all of that area.

They hold some, like there are two places there, Donetsk and Luhansk. They hold Luhansk more or less in full, but not Donetsk. So does Russia get land that it hasn't even, you know, won in battle? These are really major questions and I think the recognition, you know, the issue of legal recognition is going to become very, very important, the land number one, but also any type of recognition of this.

CHURCH: Questions do remain, as you point out, about how the U.S. is assessing Putin's seriousness when it comes to reaching a peace deal and whether his promises can be trusted after a history of violating peace agreements. So what's your overall assessment of this and how the Trump administration is approaching that?

DOUGHERTY: Well, it's confusing in a way because at the last minute, as CNN has been reporting, President Trump flipped the narrative and accepted something that Vladimir Putin has said, which was up until the Friday meeting, the United States and Europe and Ukraine were all saying there has to be a ceasefire, the fighting has to stop, and then you can go very quickly into a discussion and negotiations about a peace agreement.

Now, President Putin had the reverse. He said, no, no, we can't -- a ceasefire is nothing. We have to really assess and solve the root causes of this -- he never calls it war -- but this situation. So what he means by that is very long-term big issues about, you know, NATO expansion, post-Cold War world, a NATO never allowing or Ukraine never being allowed to get into NATO and all sorts of really severe punishments for Ukraine to keep it as really not a sovereign country that can make up its own mind about its foreign policy.

So I think, you know, as you go in, to sum it up, the dynamics are very different because Mr. Zelenskyy now has at least five other people who will be there from Europe, having his back and helping, I think, to make the case to Mr. Trump. And then also the lack of clarity about really what Trump is saying, what the plan is, what was agreed with Putin, et cetera. And the stakes are really, really high. So as usual, we're down to the wire and it will be, I think, very dramatic day.

[02:15:02]

We remember February of this year when Mr. Zelenskyy was in the Oval Office and it was a very different, very acrimonious discussion.

CHURCH: We shall certainly see what's decided in the hours ahead. Jill Dougherty, many thanks for your analysis as always.

Israel says the next phase of its war in Gaza will begin soon. The country's military chief visited the enclave on Sunday and vowed to ramp up attacks on Hamas until it's defeated. Israel's security cabinet approved a plan early this month to take over Gaza City and eventually occupy the entire strip. The plan includes the forced evacuation of up to a million Palestinians to southern Gaza.

Hamas is calling Israel's plan to relocate residents from Gaza City a quote, "new wave of genocide and displacement." The Israeli military says it's preparing to provide tents and other equipment to help move Palestinians to the south of the enclave. But those fleeing from Gaza City say they just want to go home.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NOAMAN HAMAD, DISPLACED PALESTINIAN ADRIANA DIAZ (through translation): We don't want the army to provide us with anything. We want them to take us back to the homes we fled. We don't need more than that. This operation is just an encouraging operation to flee and displace. It's not a service to us. If the army wants to serve us, they should return us to our places and old homes and provide us with tents. No problem, through the organizations and civil society institutions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Israeli protesters held widespread rallies across the country on Sunday blocking major roads and closing businesses. They called on Israel's government to secure the release of 50 hostages still held in Gaza. As CNN's Oren Liebermann reports, hundreds of thousands of people joined the nationwide strike.

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN JERUSALEM BUREAU CHIEF: It's clear as we stand here near Hostages Square on Sunday evening in Tel Aviv that this is one of the largest, if not the absolute largest anti-war protests and pro-hostage release protests that we have seen since the beginning of the war nearly two years ago. You can take a look behind me here, even at this late hour on Sunday evening, people are still on their way in, making their way to Hostages Square.

Thousands behind us easily, organizers say overall, in the square itself and on the surrounding streets, 300 or 400,000, according to their estimates. The streets are packed in both directions, towards the square, away from the square, and that was the whole point of this. This was all arranged only one week ago by bereaved families of soldiers as well as the hostage families who said this was a grassroots nationwide strike to send a loud unified message to the government to come to a deal to bring the remaining 50 hostages home, 20 of whom are still expected to be alive. They are the priority here on the streets, and that is the call that we heard from protester after protester we have spoken with.

And it isn't just on Sunday evening that this event took place. It began early on Sunday morning at 6:29, that's the time that the Hamas- led attack on October 7th began, and that's the time the demonstrations began. Road closures at major intersections across the country. From there it spread and it grew. The demonstrations, marches, many of those we have seen are wearing the yellow pins that symbolized the hostages or wearing shirts that say "Bring Them Home Now," carrying not only Israeli flags, but the yellow flags for the hostages.

The call here, it's amplification across the country, is the entire point here for the government to get the message they are sending, to get to a deal to bring the hostages home they say without any excuses and without any delay.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANAT ANGREST, MOTHER OF HOSTAGE MATAN ANGREST (through translation): Today, an entire country hit the emergency break. Today we stop everything to save the lives of 50 hostages and soldiers. Today we stop everything to remember the supreme value of the sanctity of life. Today we stop everything so we can live here together for hundreds more years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIEBERMANN: That's not an argument here that people here are buying. Many of them angry at the government, especially after the announcement that the Security Cabinet has approved the occupation and takeover of Gaza City. Those here see that as a death sentence for the hostages. And that's why they say it's so important to be on the streets tonight on Sunday night and moving forward. Oren Liebermann, CNN in Tel Aviv.

CHURCH: Three states are sending National Guard troops to Washington, D.C. to support President Trump's crime crackdown. Just ahead, where people who live there think about it. Back with that and more in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:20:00]

CHURCH: Welcome back everyone. Police are conducting an urgent manhunt in New York. They are looking for multiple suspects from a deadly overnight shooting at a lounge in Brooklyn. Officials say three people were killed and nine others injured when as many as four shooters opened fire inside the crowded building. It happened around 3:30 in the morning after a gang related dispute. So far there have been no arrests in the case.

Three Republican-led states are escalating President Trump's effort to take over local law enforcement in Washington, D.C. South Carolina, Ohio and West Virginia are sending hundreds of their own National Guard troops to patrol the streets. CNN's Camila DeChalus spoke with D.C. residents about the impact on their community as children prepare to head back to school.

CAMILA DECHALUS, CNN REPORTER: Several D.C. residents and youth activists told me that their biggest concern is that young black and Latino teens are going to be the most impacted by the larger police presence in the city. And while some D.C. residents have acknowledged that youth violence is a big issue in the city, they believe that Trump's actions are only going to do more harm than good. Take a listen to what some D.C. residents had to say.

[02:24:56]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN: It's doing absolutely nothing at all. It's not -- this is doing absolutely nothing. It's theater. It's political theater. And the only people that fall for it are people that don't live here.

UNKNOWN: Out here to protest. The idea of having someone that isn't even familiar with D.C. in charge of the police here is terrifying to me.

UNKNOWN: I have never lived in a city where there's military outside my door.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DECHALUS: Now, during my conversation with several D.C. residents, some parents with children in the D.C. public school system did express that they think that Trump's latest move of deploying more federal law enforcement to the city is actually a step in the right direction to combat youth violence.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DECHALUS: Do you have any reservations or concerns sending your kids to school with the fact that the DEA and the National Troops are all deployed into the city?

UNKNOWN: No. To me, it actually makes the streets a bit more safer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DECHALUS: Now, the Trump administration on their and says that their main objective in sending more troops to D.C. to really make D.C. safe again. And they say that they really want to combat youth crime. But when you look at the data of youth arrest for violent offenses from 2018 to 2024, it paints a bit of a complicated picture. You see that there was a little bit of a decline from 2019 to 2020, and then there was a little bit of an uptick after 2022 to 2024.

But youth activists say that more funding from the federal government should really be going towards more resources and programs that help and target inner city youth, not to increase law enforcement presence in the city.

CHURCH: New York City officials say a cluster of Legionnaires' disease has now spiked to 101 confirmed cases in central Harlem, including four deaths. Health officials believe the outbreak is linked to cooling towers used for large buildings. When not properly cleaned, Legionella bacteria can grow in them and spread through the air. The city's health department says 11 of the 12 cooling towers have already been repaired and the final tower will be fixed by Friday. According to the World Health Organization, Legionnaires' disease causes flu- like symptoms but can become deadly if left untreated.

Coming up, Ukrainians have changed their minds about how to end the war Russia started. We'll take a look just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:30:37]

CHURCH: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be joined by key European leaders when he meets with Donald Trump at the White House in the coming hours. A European Commission spokesperson says leaders in Europe focused on security guarantees for Ukraine during talks in preparation for Monday's meeting.

CNN's Ben Wedeman has more now from Kyiv.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: European leaders joined Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy for a conference call to coordinate their positions before meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House Monday. Eager in the wake of the Alaska summit to avoid a repeat of that stormy Oval Office meeting last February, and after President Trump told Fox News Sean Hannity, it's up to Zelenskyy to get it done and make a deal. It appeared Trump was once again putting the onus back on Ukraine, which perhaps explains why Poland's foreign minister posted on social media Sunday that for peace to come, pressure must be placed on the aggressor, not the victim.

CNN has learned that President Putin told Trump Russia will accept that the U.S. and its European allies provide Ukraine with security guarantees, but in exchange, Russia wants Ukraine to give up control of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, something Ukraine's government and people we spoke to reject.

IRYNA KRENETS, KYIV RESIDENT: If some people come to your house and steal your kitchen, your bedroom, you say, okay, okay, stay here. No, it's not okay. It's not -- it's not good for us. We are freedom people and we -- I hope we don't take any piece of our lands.

WEDEMAN: By as early as next Friday, Trump is hoping to coax Putin and Zelenskyy to a three way summit, followed eventually by a peace agreement. European leaders, however, remain wary of Putin's intentions, which, with French President Emmanuel Macron warning, if we are weak with Russia today, we are preparing the conflicts of tomorrow.

I'm Ben Wedeman, CNN reporting from Kyiv.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: A recent poll found that most Ukrainians favor a negotiated end to the war. Gallup conducted the poll in early July before Donald Trump's meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska.

Still, it's a sharp change from the early days of Russia's war.

CNN's Harry Enten breaks it down for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATAANALYST: Hi there. Ahead of the big talks in Washington with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenskyy paying a visit to the states, Ukrainians views on the war effort have changed tremendously since the start of the war. The war effort, support for it has absolutely collapsed in Ukraine. What are we talking about here? Okay, Ukrainians on the war versus Russia.

You go back to 2022, the start of the war. Look at this, 73 percent of Ukrainians said fight until Ukraine wins just 22 percent who wanted a negotiation to end the war as soon as possible.

Look at where we are now. Oh, my, that 22 percent who wanted to negotiate an end to the war as soon as possible, has jumped all the way up to 69 percent. Meanwhile, the percentage who say we should -- that Ukrainians should in fact fight until Ukraine wins the war.

Look at that. It's plummeted to 24 percent. The two positions have become the inverse of each other. At the beginning of the war, Ukrainians wanted to fight until Ukraine wins. And now look at it. The vast, vast majority, more than two thirds, want to negotiate an end to the war as soon as possible.

Now, what is a big reason why they want an end to the war? Negotiate one as soon as possible? Is because Ukrainians don't see an end to the war in sight. What are we talking about? Ukrainians on the war ending within a year.

Get this. Just 25 percent say that it is likely the vast majority, 68 percent say it is unlikely that 68 percent, of course, very, very close to the percentage right now who say that they want to negotiate an end to the war as soon as possible.

Now, of course, there were many goals that Ukrainians and Ukraine had at the start of the war that they wanted to carry out if they were to win the war. One of those was the idea that Ukraine could, in fact join NATO. But the Ukrainians see that as a likely possibility, not within the next ten years. [02:35:00]

Get this, Ukrainians, NATO admission within ten years, at the start of the war. Look at this. It was 64 percent. Now, in 2025, look at that, plummeted to just half that level at 32 percent.

So, again, it's going to be very interesting to see what happens with these talks tomorrow in Washington, D.C. but what is clear from the polling data is that Ukrainians want an end to the war, a negotiated end, as soon as possible. And they believe that they are not going to get an end to the war as soon as possible. And more than that, they believe that, in fact, many of the goals that they had at the beginning of the war at this particular point are not going to be fulfilled within the foreseeable future, including NATO mission within the next ten years.

Back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Well, Bolivia's presidential election is headed to a runoff for the first time ever. Dark horse centrist candidate, Senator Rodrigo Paz, drew more votes than the right wing frontrunners on Sunday. But Paz did not secure enough for an outright victory, according to early results. The former mayor will face off against conservative former President Jorge "Tuto" Quiroga in October's runoff.

The results are a major blow to Bolivia's movement towards socialism, marking an end to the party's almost two decades of dominance.

Still to come, the Spanish government deploys military troops to help contain more than a dozen wildfires. We'll have the latest on the fight against the dangerous summer fires.

Back with that and more in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHURCH: Spain battled at least 20 major fires over the weekend, according to officials. It comes amid a rise in blistering heat waves across Europe. At least seven people have been killed, and even more fires are likely. Spain has mobilized additional military troops to help firefighters contain the blazes and prevent scenes like this, where an entire town was decimated by the flames.

[02:40:05]

Fires are also burning across the border in Portugal, and some officials are calling this the worst wildfire season in decades.

Hundreds of robot athletes are powering down after competing in the world's first robot Olympics. The inaugural World Humanoid Robot Games concluded in Beijing on Sunday. Humanoid robots from 280 teams and 16 countries competed in a variety of sporting events, including the world's first humanoid robot, 100 meter sprint. The four-day event also included robot specific tasks like sorting

medicines and cleaning services. Organizers say the games are a chance to collect data that help future development. The event is China's latest foray into the humanoids and robotics space.

In April, nearly two dozen Chinese robots competed alongside humans in the world's first humanoid half marathon.

I want to thank you so much for joining us. I'm Rosemary Church. For our international viewers, "WORLD SPORT" is coming up next. And for those of you in North America, I'll be back with more CNN NEWSROOM after a short break. Stick around.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:45:25]

CHURCH: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Rosemary Church.

Hurricane Erin is back to a category four storm. Erin currently has sustained winds of about 130 miles per hour, or 215 kilometers per hour. It isn't expected to make landfall, but tropical storm warnings are in effect for Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas.

Meanwhile, Erin's outer bands hit Puerto Rico with heavy rain, causing flooding. The island is expected to get up to two more inches of rain. Puerto Rico's governor says 100,000 people have lost power.

CNN meteorologist Allison Chinchar has more on what we can expect from Hurricane Erin.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: By very early Tuesday morning, Hurricane Erin should be just about the same latitude as Miami, Florida. However, it will be several hundred miles offshore. But even with that said, the storm itself is starting to expand as we go through the next few days.

So going from Tuesday into Wednesday and eventually into Thursday. The storm is actually expected to grow 2 to 3 times its current size. What this does is it expands out that very large wind field, meaning it's not only spreading some of the outer rain bands, potentially to the coastal regions of North Carolina and Virginia, but also all of that wind field that expands is taking all of that water and pushing it onshore.

This, unfortunately, can lead to incredibly dangerous high surf conditions, as well as rip currents. Not just for places like North Carolina, but we actually anticipate rip currents to be a potential problem from Florida all the way up the entire eastern seaboard, and not just Monday and Tuesday, but this is expected to extend into Wednesday, Thursday and Friday as the storm continues to slide up the East Coast. Because even though the storm itself will actually begin to weaken by this point, that wind field, as we mentioned, is going to continue to get larger, increasing the potential risk for high surf and rip current conditions.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: The U.S. is suspending visitor visas for Palestinians from Gaza. In a post on X, the State Department said it would review the process that allows them to temporarily enter the U.S. for medical and humanitarian reasons. Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the move, saying he's seen evidence linking visa recipients to terrorist groups in the region.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARCO RUBIO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: There is evidence been presented to us by numerous congressional offices that some of the organizations bragging about and involved in acquiring these visas have strong links to terrorist groups like Hamas. And so, we are not going to be in partnership with groups that are friendly with Hamas.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: The group Heal Palestine, an American nonprofit that provides critical aid to Palestinian families and children from Gaza, criticized the visa move, saying this is a medical treatment program, not a refugee resettlement program.

Well, later today, a U.S. federal judge will hold a hearing over the controversial detention center in the Florida Everglades. Attorneys say Trump administration officials are blocking detainees from meeting with legal counsel in violation of their civil rights. And that's just one lawsuit against the notorious facility.

CNN's Rafael Romo has details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alligator Alcatraz is currently facing two lawsuits. One was filed by environmental groups who are opposed to such a facility being built in the middle of an ecosystem like the Florida everglades. The other one was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, an immigrants' rights advocates.

A federal court in Miami will hold a hearing on Monday in the ACLU case, which focuses on two allegations lack of access to legal counsel and violations of due process for migrants detained at the facility. The complaint, filed last month in the U.S. district court of southern Florida in Miami, specifically states that, quote, defendants in this case have blocked detainees held at the facility from access to legal counsel. No protocols exist at this facility for providing standard means of confidential attorney client communication, such as in-person attorney visitation and phone or video calls that are available at any other detention facility, jail, or prison.

The right to an attorney is guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. In criminal cases, regardless of the legal status of an individual. Eunice Cho, the ACLU's lead counsel in this case, says beyond the

harsh conditions detainees face at Alligator Alcatraz that she says she has never seen at any other detention center, there are fundamental rights that are being violated.

[02:50:06]

EUNICE CHO, SENIOR COUNSEL, ACLU'S NATIONAL PRISON PROJECT: What we're seeing is that Florida state officials are rounding people up and in many different and very disturbing ways, and eventually taking these individuals to Alligator Alcatraz. And they're being held, of course, without, you know, honoring many of the very basic constitutional rights to be able to speak, to counsel, to be able to petition for release from custody and, you know, Alligator Alcatraz cannot end up being a black hole where people disappear.

ROMO: Of course, we reached out to the Department of Homeland Security about these claims. In a statement, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said that any allegation that illegal aliens at Alligator Alcatraz do not have access to attorneys is false. The facility maintains a physical space for attorneys to meet with their clients.

Additionally, Florida established an email address for attorneys to submit requests to speak to the specific illegal aliens. The ACLU lawsuit names Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and her entire department as defendants, as well as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, his executive director of emergency management, Kevin Guthrie, and other officials.

We also reached out to the state of Florida for comment on this, but there has been no response so far.

Rafael Romo, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Attorneys for the families of migrants who have been taken into custody say it's been increasingly difficult to locate their loved ones. A CNN investigation found that companies operating deportation flights are making it harder to track them.

CNN's Rene Marsh has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: More than 30 migrants, detainees handcuffed walk up those steps and get on board. One, two, three, four more detainees. You can tell that their hands are restrained.

(voice-over): This is one of about 6,000 ICE flights since President Donald Trump took office. We were able to find this plane here in Richmond, Virginia, but most of them are hidden from the public and operating with little transparency.

Virtually, every ICE flight carrying detainees blocks their tail numbers from flight tracking websites, making it nearly impossible for families and advocates to find their loved ones once they're in ICE custody.

This is one of the tail numbers that we think could possibly come here, and right now, it's in Youngstown. Oh, look, I think it's taken off because the altitude is increasing. Yeah.

We studied months of flight paths, got a tail number and made an educated guess about which flight would arrive in Richmond. Then using a crowdsourced database that monitors aircraft radio signals, we tracked the suspected flight, revealing every city and state it stopped in within 24 hours.

This is the plane we're tracking, a Boeing 737 operated by Eastern Air Express, with the tail number N668CP. It has up to 148 economy seats, a bathroom in the front and the back, but it's unclear how many people are on board this flight or any other ICE flight.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tyson 51, continue on.

MARSH: Okay. Tyson 51 is this one right now. That's the call sign that they're using for this flight.

Many ICE flights go by Tyson. The same call sign used to identify Trump's personal plane after he was elected in 2016.

Here's the flight path it took on August 6 -- Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania to Louisiana, back to Ohio, then New York, picking up and dropping off detainees at every stop.

If it's actually coming to Virginia, it should be here very soon.

It's on approach. It's on approach right now.

It's altitude is like literally 50 feet. So --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, I think over there, over there. Go, go, go.

MARSH: All right. I think -- I think that might be it.

This is a plane. This is a plane that we've been tracking all morning. This is it.

And we just saw like more than 30 detainees handcuffed, walk up those steps and get on board.

There's one, two, three, four more detainees. You can tell that their hands are restrained. Another, another one, another. Okay, so they're unloading another vehicle here. Multiple detainees walking up to get on board this Eastern Air Express flight.

The Trump administration has used more than 70 airports across the country for domestic shuttle flights so far, moving ICE detainees between detention centers before deportation.

In the past three months, the number of these flights spiked 90 percent compared to the same time period last year, according to an immigrant rights group.

And that trend is expected to continue after the Department of Homeland Security recently earmarked $14.4 billion for ICE flights.

[02:55:01]

We know that the tail number of the flight that we've been tracking today is N668CP, and we want to see if this public tracking site that gets its data and information from the FAA has any record of the flight. Nothing comes up.

But we were able to track the flight as it made its way back to Alexandria, Louisiana, the busiest hub for ICE deportation flights.

At this point in the journey, some of the first detainees on board were possibly on this plane, handcuffed for nearly ten hours. As this ICE flight completes its 24-hour trip, Louisiana is likely the last stop in the U.S. before the people on board are deported.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARSH (on camera): Well, the reality is it was not very simple to track this ICE flight. We weren't even sure we had successfully done it until it was coming in for landing at Richmond's airport. And the point is, these flights really have virtually no eyes on them. Families and advocates have no idea where their loved ones are going once they are in ICE custody.

Now, one of the airlines flying the flights for ICE, Avelo Airlines, told CNN in an email, quote, flights operated on behalf of the United States government are often unidentified at the government's request. So, we reached out to the Department of Homeland Security. That's the agency that oversees ICE to get a better understanding as to why these flights are blocking their tail numbers. But the agency did not comment.

Rene Marsh, CNN, Washington.

CHURCH: The U.S. Postal Service says it will issue a commemorative stamp honoring former President Jimmy Carter. The Postal Service plans to release the forever stamp in Atlanta on October 1st, which would have been his 101st birthday. The executive director of the Friends of Jimmy Carter says this stamp will give the world an opportunity to share his legacy with others on a daily basis.

I want to thank you so much for your company this hour. I'm Rosemary Church. I'll be back with more CNN NEWSROOM after a short break. Do stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)