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First of All with Victor Blackwell

Teen Fighting Cancer Fights For Dad's Release; Judge: Detention Of Father Of Teen Battling Cancer Is "Unlawful"; New York Wrestles With Complex History Of Erie Canal On 200th Anniversary. Aired 8-9a ET

Aired October 25, 2025 - 08:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:01:11]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: First of all, when you are battling cancer, every day matters. Having your family around matters. Let me introduce Ophelia Torres. She's 16 years old. She's battling cancer, stage four.

For the past few months, Ophelia has had her father to lean on. She says her dad, Ruben Torres Maldonado, has been her main caretaker. Ophelia's family says he's even drained the fluid from her abdomen at least twice a day. That's part of her treatment.

Her dad is now not by her side because he's in an immigration detention center. Here's Ophelia describing what happened. She made this video for social media.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VOICE OF OPHELIA TORRES, DAUGHTER OF MAN DETAINED BY IMMIGRANTION ENFORCEMENT: On December 5, 2024, I was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma, and about a month ago, we found out that the cancer was growing through my treatment, and I've spent the last month in the hospital. On October 17th, in the evening I was discharged and I'm spending the weekend at home. But I will be back on Monday, and my dad, Ruben Torres, grand Torres, has been the main parent who watches my brother while I stayed at the hospital.

Sometime on today, on October 18, 2025, between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., he was detained by ICE at a Home Depot in Niles, Illinois, specifically the one on Dempster. As of right now, we do not have any information on what happened while he was detained. We only know that his car was left in the parking lot, and this is a video of the state of his vehicle.

My dad, like many other fathers, is a hard-working person who wakes up early in the morning and goes to work without complaint -- without complaining. Thinking about his family. I find it so unfair that hard- working immigrant families are being targeted just because they were not born here.

Thankfully, we have been blessed to know people who jumped on this case immediately. Sadly, that's not the case for all families. And that's why I'm making this video to spread awareness and remind the public that immigrants are humans with families and deserve to be treated with love and respect just like anyone else.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: Now, the President promised to target and deport the worst of the worst. Remember that. The drug dealers, the killers, the rapists. What does the Department of Homeland Security say about Torres? Well, here's the statement. This is from DHS.

"Torres had a criminal history of habitual driving offenses and has been charged multiple times with driving without insurance, driving without a valid license, and speeding. And also during his arrest, he did not comply with instructions from the officers and attempted to flee in his vehicle and backed into a government vehicle.

This case has now gone before a judge, and late yesterday, a judge ruled that the detention of Torres was unlawful and in violation of his due process. But Torres is still in custody.

Kalman Resnik is with us. He's the family's attorney. Attorney Resnik, thank you for being with me.

First, let's just start with where I ended off. If his detention is unlawful, why is he still in custody this morning?

KALMAN RESNICK, ATTORNEY FOR RUBEN TORRES MALDONADO AND FAMILY: What is the judge found unlawful was mandatory detention. The ISIS interpretation of the law post Trump's becoming president changed last month, and what the Board of Immigration Appeals issued a decision that said people like Ruben who have entered without status to the United States are not eligible for bond. And what the judge found is that is unlawful. It's a violation of the immigration statutes and due process of law. And now what we're going to have is a bond hearing before an immigration judge within the next seven, six days now, where the immigration judge will decide the conditions of release.

[08:05:13]

Will he be -- what bond will the family have to pay in order to secure his release from detention? And then the proceedings will continue, but without him being detained. And during in those proceedings, Ruben is eligible to apply for lawful permanent residence based on how long he's lived here and the hardships his removal would cause his children.

BLACKWELL: And the hardship is obvious because he's a caretaker for a 16-year-old with stage 4 metastatic rhabdomyosarcoma, which is an aggressive soft tissue cancer. What do you know, if anything, about how Ophelia is doing now? Because I know that she's put a treatment on pause. What do you know about her condition? RESNICK: She didn't put her treatment on pause. She went to the

hospital on Monday, and doctors found that her emotional and physical condition after the weekend of detention of her father was not good enough for her to continue with the chemotherapy. So they postponed the chemo. And we're hoping that her dad will be back very soon and she will be in a condition to continue treatment at Lurie's Children's Hospital in Chicago.

BLACKWELL: I appreciate the clarification there. I also learned from that video and from reading about this family, and correct me if I'm wrong here, that Mr. Torres is the sole earner for this family. And if he is deported, you know, there's a GoFundMe, but medical bills and legal bills can run through that quickly. What's next for this family if he is forced to leave the country?

RESNICK: Poverty, loss of their home that they own because they won't be able to pay the mortgage. The mother of Ophelia was working, but she had to stop working to take care of her children. And so the father, on the day he was detained at a Home Depot, was doing side jobs in home repair and home renovation to make money to pay medical bills of his daughter.

BLACKWELL: You heard my intro here where the president promised the worst of the worst. And when asked about Mr. Torres, they cited his traffic infractions in the past. What's your response? Your reaction to the characterization of your client and how that reconciles with what the -- the administration promised would be their targets.

RESNICK: We're talking here about the best of the best, not the worst of the worst. And let me tell you, I've had driving offenses and tickets. Does that make me a criminal? This is a ridiculous way in which the government is trying to villainize immigrants. And our country is a country of immigrants.

I'm the son, grandson, and great grandson of immigrants. We need to defend our immigrant neighbors, not let them be targeted by our government as if they were bounty hunters out to get them. These people with masks who have no consideration of what damage they're doing to families.

BLACKWELL: Kalman Resnick, finish your answer. Finish your answer.

RESNICK: No. I hope that this case will help educate the American people about what is happening and that they will demand that our government start to stop these attacks on immigrant families.

BLACKWELL: Kalman Resnick, attorney for Mr. Torres, thank you. And we, of course, will follow this story and Ophelia's condition very closely.

All right. So you know when you know somebody's worried about something, but you don't have an answer to make them feel better, so you just say, don't worry, I got you. Well, that's what President Trump sounded like last night, talking about food stamp funding. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you going to direct the Department of Agriculture to fund food stamps next month?

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Everybody's going to be in good shape. Yes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: That's the whole answer. Yes, everybody's going to be in good shape, yes. Now, that's relevant because the short response contradicts what his administration said this week.

In a Memo obtained by CNN, the Department of Agriculture says it has a $6 billion contingency fund, but it will not be used to cover food stamps and cover states expenses. Those expenses from the states will not be reimbursed.

[08:10:07]

So if the Shutdown continues, Roughly 42 million Americans will not get food assistance starting a week from today, November 1st. Yesterday was payday for hundreds of thousands of federal workers. At least it was supposed to have been payday because they have now missed their first full paychecks. More will miss their first full paychecks in the next few days. A lot of people are already turning to food banks.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAWN WASHINGTON, DENVER RESIDENT: I'm going to really be depending on the food banks stuff that I can make a meal out of, or if I'm just going to be eating soup for the month.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It means a whole lot more that's got to come out of my Social Security check to buy food and just a lot of other things like things I need in toiletries that I won't be able to get because of the fact that food will be a priority.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: With my rent due next week, I could take anything I can get at this point. Gotten a paycheck this month. So the free groceries is very important, very helpful.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's overwhelming. There are at least 2 to 300 people in this line that we're servicing today. Federal employees. It's mind-boggling.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: Corey Campbell is Founder and CEO of the Baby Pantry, one of the many nonprofits helping families in need right now. Thank you for coming in.

You know, before we look ahead, let's talk about what's happening right now. We're now in the fourth week of the shutdown, and the we're here in the Atlanta area. Hundreds of thousands of federal employees not too far from here. CDC located here. What are you seeing in the first three weeks of the shutdown?

CHLOREY CAMPBELL, FOUNDER AND CEO, THE BABY PANTRY: So a lot of families are reaching out because they are in need of assistance. Baby food because we assist families with younger children and infants. And so families are reaching out for baby food. They're reaching out for baby formula. They're also reaching out for other essentials, diapers, wipes, and clothing. So a lot of families right now are in need.

BLACKWELL: Yes, you know, I had in the last show, I spoke with someone who is involved closely with nonprofits. The nonprofits across the country are seeing that their funding is on hold from the federal government because of the shutdown. You've got the people who are not being paid because of the shutdown as well. What do you expect this will look like? Week one in November, week two, week three, if this goes on?

CAMPBELL: I think we'll see a significant increase right now with the coming weeks. I think that we'll see have like a really high demand for those workers that are not receiving pay. So we're just trying to embrace ourselves for that.

BLACKWELL: And we didn't see this in the 2018 and 2019 shutdown because there was a plan, if there was a pause of WIC, if there was a pause of SNAP benefits, but ends met because it ended sooner than that. Are you equipped, are you stocked to help the people who will be surging toward your doors?

CAMPBELL: So, yes and no. So due to a recent move, we did have to temporarily close our doors. And so we are looking to see how we are able to pivot and how we are able to get the essentials that the families will need.

BLACKWELL: How can people help?

CAMPBELL: So they can reach out to us. Our website, www.thebabypantry.org. They can send us an email at infothebabypypantry.org, and they can reach out that way.

BLACKWELL: Are you seeing a softening of support? Because obviously when people have to triage and they have to prioritize paying the bills, when less money is coming in, they have less to give, less to support. Companies are maybe tightening the belt where. What are you seeing there?

CAMPBELL: I think we have. We've built a pretty solid foundation here in Atlanta. We have a lot of really great donors that help us. And so, you know, I think that with the support of the community, you know, we do have the help here.

BLACKWELL: What do you feel when you see some of these, especially federal workers? These are, you know, I want to dispel the notion that people who go to charities and go for help are not working people. Right. Most of these people are working people.

CAMPBELL: Yes.

BLACKWELL: And when they come to you, what do you feel? And see.

CAMPBELL: It's just a feeling of sadness because I think that, you know, because it's not just people that are, like you said, not that are not working. Some people, they have good jobs laid off, of course, so we see a different background of different people. But it's just a feeling of sadness. You know, some people have. Are just really facing a lot of hard times and just kind of have like a really great need. And especially children, like, they're very vulnerable. And so it's just a disgrace.

[08:15:07]

BLACKWELL: Yes. I mean, whether or not the president invites Schumer and Jeffries to the White House, the kids got to eat.

CAMPBELL: Right.

BLACKWELL: The rent has to be paid. Formula has to be purchased. The diapers have to be purchased. Everything has to keep moving. Those mouths are going to be hungry. Chlorey Campbell, The Baby Pantry. Thank you for coming in.

CAMPBELL: Thank you for having me.

BLACKWELL: All right. After a deadly crash, right-wing voices are speaking out against immigrant truck drivers, particularly those from India. I'll speak with someone sounding the alarm about the rhetoric she says is distorting views.

Plus, the new exhibit that's putting Confederate monuments back on display, but not in the way you'd expect.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:20:27]

BLACKWELL: The driver of a semi truck who is accused of killing three people in a crash is pleading not guilty. This is a tragic case, but it's drawing particular attention from right-wing media not because of who the victims of the crash were, but because of who the driver of the truck was.

The driver's name is Jashanpreet Singh. The Department of Homeland Security says he entered the country illegally from India. This crash happened in California. But the Trump administration is pairing this crash with one that happened in Florida in August. The government says the truck driver in that crash was also in the country illegally.

Just last month, the Transportation Department put restrictions on commercial driver's licenses for people who were non-citizens. And after this week's crash in California, the rhetoric, it's picking back up.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEAN DUFFY, TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: These very foreign drivers with these kind of licenses that don't just drive the big rig or the tanker. They're also driving school buses, getting behind the wheel, taking kids to and from school. And there's no certainty that they actually have the skills to drive those vehicles. They understand the English language to stay safe when they're on the roadway. So a whole bunch of issues at play.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: Bhupinder Kaur is director of operations for United. Six members of her family are truck drivers, and she's concerned about the rhetoric. Bhupinder, thank you for being on.

Let me start here by just saying Jashanpreet Singh is innocent until proven guilty, but there's not a whole lot of sympathy for someone, regardless of their status in this country who is accused of driving under the influence and killing innocent people. But you've spoken about the unequal treatment of immigrant drivers in situations like this. What do you see?

BHUPINDER KAUR, DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS, UNITED SIKHS: Absolutely. So first I want to apologize to any of the community who have been hurt by this terrible tragedy. Our hearts go out to the families that are affected, and we want the community to know that this incident that happened doesn't reflect the entire community.

BLACKWELL: And Bhupinder independent of legal status, what's the residual impact on the Sikh trucker community? And again, people had nothing to do with this crash.

KAUR: Absolutely. The community is obviously shaken because, you know, just because of the incidents that happened with this, you know, these few very, you know, few instances that it's being painted that the entire community is, you know, agreeing with what happened. And, you know, but that's not the case. SIKHS, you know, people are known to be humanitarians, and we're always in service and praying for the well of others. So when we are marginalized and, you know, put into this particular box, it's very disturbing.

BLACKWELL: Let me ask you about the issue of undocumented immigrants being issued driver's licenses. As you know, it's a controversial topic, and there are some who say there is no way that a person who is undocumented in this country illegally. Pick your rhetoric there. Should be allowed to have a driver's license, much less a commercial driver's license. And to those people, you say what?

KAUR: Well, basically, the Fifth and 14th Amendments guarantees protections for everyone. And in our America, that's what we believe is that we all have the, you know, same rights as any other, you know, U.S. soil-born person is that we all believe in, you know, the pursuit of happiness and life and liberty. So we believe that it should, the justice should be equal throughout, you know, the whole spectrum.

BLACKWELL: Well, the administration would say there's no constitutional right to a driver's license.

KAUR: Well, I mean, I think that's -- that will be figured out in the courts.

BLACKWELL: Okay. A few weeks ago, Department of Transportation issued a ban on new CDLs to people who are not in the country legally. The Secretary, Duffy, Sean Duffy says that the three killed in California would be alive today if the governor had complied with that directive. What's the impact of that change of not allowing commercial driver's licenses to the SIKH community? Because some quick reading shows that there is a large number of SIKH truck drivers across the country, especially on the West Coast.

[08:25:22]

KAUR: Well, absolutely. You know, United States and just the community as a whole, we always want to find a way forward. We want to know that, you know, these are all truck drivers that are trying to provide for their families. At the end of the day, we all want to come home to our own families. We want to be able to live the American dream just as any other, you know, person living in America. And, you know, I think all of the truck drivers that I've spoken to are remaining committed to safety. They all want safe driving conditions. They want to make sure that everyone is being treated fairly across the board. And just because, you know, wearing a turban or having a beard doesn't mean that, you know, someone is uneducated or undeserving of these protections. I think it's really important to remember that.

BLACKWELL: Bhupinder Kaur, I thank you for the conversation.

KAUR: Thanks for having me.

BLACKWELL: All right. I saw a woman asking for help this week. This is the first time I'd seen anything like this. A woman on social media said that there were accounts that were stealing her face. See what we found, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:31:02]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Y'all, please tell me you've seen that video of the bride saying, you can't hurt me. This is what my mother-in-law bought to wear to our wedding.

Y'all, please tell me you've seen that video of the bride saying, you can't hurt me. This is what my mother-in-law bought to wear to our wedding.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Think about the implications of what you just saw.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: Hey, if you were on social media, you got to pay attention to this. Deepfakes are not just for celebrities and politicians anymore. Some content creators are using just any everyday people's faces to make videos, and some of them are pretty convincing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was looking at certain videos and I came across this one.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I saw the original video of the Door Dash girl and I'm a little bit confused now that I woke up and see everything that's happening. When I saw it, I said, hey, I understand why Door Dash, I guess, fired you and why you're a block from the app. Now as for the guy --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's a little weird, right? Why are they saying the same thing in a very similar tone and a very similar cadence?

CHRIS BLACK: My name is Chris Black.

BLACKWELL: When did you first realize what was happening here?

BLACK: They actually came up from another person's TikTok video and funnily enough, they didn't understand what was going on. They were like, wow, is there a script going on? And essentially I was like, no, that. That one on the right is AI. Like, you can -- like, people wouldn't read everything the same way. There's a little bit of a different cadence there.

So some creator makes this video, some program rips this video based on popularity. Whatever program they use to have the AI, they use that same transcripts down to the way they speak, down to pause is down to the enunciations.

BLACKWELL: And Chris noticed something else about the account that posted that suspicious video on the right.

BLACK: They're echoing a lot of mannerisms of black and brown people and minorities.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Your homegirl should have had some money.

BLACK: If we can, like, get all the enunciations in, like, the different ways that we as people speak or of different cultures speak and different, like, looks and feels of culture, then we can pretty much replicate anything. Like, even the videos that I had shared, they were saying, like, things that are very typical in our community to say. So they're echoing voices and sentiments.

And I'm like, oh, that's really dangerous. Because in an era where we feel like there's so much information, there's more misinformation than ever. And all it takes is one video or two or a couple of videos that have the same premise, the same idea to make you think that something is true.

You can literally have anybody say whatever you want and start a narrative. And then you can have a fake background in the back saying that this is real. They could say, well, look at all these eight black people jumping this white baby in Colorado. And then they'll have 10 other accounts make the same video. And you keep scrolling like, man. Actually, that must have happened.

You can incite so much emotion, which leads to someone feeling some type of way, doing some kind of thing, buying something. You can incite emotion off of something that you didn't that doesn't exist anymore. You can do whatever you want now with this new form of AI video creation.

This is most likely a real woman's face. It's most likely that woman's same voice.

BLACKWELL: Yes, it is. And we found her.

MIRLIE LAROSE, NEWS PRODUCER: My name is Mirlie Larose. They're stealing my face.

BLACKWELL: When did you first hear about this account and your image?

LAROSE: Back in August was around the time I was getting messages from my friends and my family asking me like, hey, is this you? Racism in 2025 is actually insane.

Within the first two seconds, I was like, was this me? Did I talk about this? And then after a while, I'm like, something's not right. There's no way this is me because I never shared this opinion.

BLACKWELL: How many videos do you think there are of on this account?

LAROSE: They probably have over 25 posts, and about 20 posts are of me.

BLACKWELL: What's the fear about what's next potentially for this account?

LAROSE: My fear is truthfully come from my safety. We all can be victims sometimes people take opinions to the highest extent and we'll take your life for it. We just seen it happen a few weeks ago with Charlie Kirk.

BLACKWELL: And you also work in journalism?

LAROSE: I've been a news producer for more than two years now. These kinds of accusations going to tarnish my name at some point if I don't get ahead of it.

[08:35:02]

BLACKWELL: And so what have you tried to do to stop it?

LAROSE: I've reported the pages, I've commented underneath. I've communicated with TikTok and TikTok has done nothing about it.

BLACK: Most of us have hundreds of hours of us speaking or at least 100 photos of our faces or something like that. There's so much for AI to just kind of, you know, use as their data set. So there isn't -- I don't really think there's anything we could do.

BLACKWELL: So we reached out to TikTok about the account that posted the deep fakes of Merlie and a spokesperson tells us that after our call, they remove that account for violating their rules. They also say that if this happens to you should go to TikTok.com slash legal slash report slash privacy.

This is also part of their reply. As AI evolves, we're continuing to update and build new detection models to identify AI generated content. We're also partnering with experts on media literacy content.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Creating the Erie Canal transformed America, but it also harmed Native Americans. As the waterway celebrates 200 years, I'll speak with someone trying to balance that history as he gets close to wrapping up a 33-day trip on a boat called the Seneca Chief.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:40:55]

BLACKWELL: Tomorrow marks 200 years since the opening of the Erie Canal. It's about 360 miles long, the artificial waterway that connects the Hudson River to Lake Erie on the other side of New York. It helped open up trade for a young United States and connected new parts of the growing country.

But like so many events over the course of American history, it marked progress for one group at the cost of another, namely the Haudenosaunee tribe. Its traditional territory stretches almost the entire length of the Erie Canal.

And now, 200 years later, officials face a reckoning. Should celebration be tempered with remembrance at a time when the entire nation is pulling back on remembering the more painful parts of its history?

Well, so far, the state is trying to do both. White Pine Trees, Haudenosaunee Symbol of Peace, were recently planted near the waterway in honor of the tribes displaced. And a replica of the first boat to sail the canal, the Seneca Chief, is making its way to New York City.

The boat was constructed by the Buffalo Maritime Center, and its executive director, Brian Trzeciak, is with us now aboard the Seneca Chief. Brian, good morning to you and thank you.

Before we talk about, you know, national narrative and the treatment of history, teach me a little bit this morning what this meant to the Haudenosaunee people. As I said, progress for one group. What did it mean to those tribes?

BRIAN TRZECIAK, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BUFFALO MARITIME CENTER: Well, thanks for having me on. We should know that the Erie Canal story is a story about people overcoming obstacles. And when we talk about the history, we're talking about people that built this artificial waterway through land that didn't have it already. We're talking about people moving immigrants across the country. It played a role in the Underground Railroad. It helped engineering. There's a lot of really great things that the Erie Canal did.

But if you only tell that story, you're only telling a piece of history. So this boat is called the Seneca Chief. And because of that, we thought it was only right to look back into that history and examine it. And that's when we started looking into the story of the Haudenosaunee being displaced in order to build this Erie Canal.

BLACKWELL: I read a local story there in the Buffalo News about an Erie County executive who went to a local museum and saw an exhibit and said the story about the Haudenosaunee was too much. It was sad. And there is this national, I guess, story reshaping of America. The President says there's too much slavery talk at the Smithsonian, too much negativity at national parks. What are you trying to do?

Because I use the word balance going into the break, and I don't know if that's the right word. What are you striking with this journey as you come up on this major landmark?

TRZECIAK: I think we're trying to tell history. And if you value history, if you're a historian, if you like only parts of history, you're not telling the truth. And what we're trying to do here is to tell all of history. So I don't know how someone could look back in history and say, we're going to tell this portion because it's happy, but we're going to leave out the sad parts, because history is not sad or happy. History is history.

So what we're trying to do is to put forward that holistic narrative and really bring up that -- just the story of people and community coming together. And that's what the Seneca Chief, this boat, today, 200 years later, is trying to do, and we are doing across the state. We are bringing people together. We're having tough conversations.

I just had a conversation with someone who might not agree with a lot of this, but we had that conversation, and that was absolutely important in this day and age.

BACKWELL: Talk to me about the white pines that you planted.

TRZECIAK: Sure. So we are planting the eastern white pine tree, and that is a symbol of peace, the Great Tree of Peace in Haudenosaunee culture. And we wanted to do something, as we are taking this journey, to leave something behind symbolically.

[08:45:04]

And we became friends and had relationships with people in the Indigenous community, namely the Tonawanda Historical or Tonawanda Reservation Historical Society. When we visited them, we told them about the idea of planting trees. And they said, well, if you planted a white pine, that would be an honor to the Haudenosaunee something. Something giving back. It's not enough. Right. It's just the beginning.

But as we're planting these trees, we are learning that more and more people are appreciating the fact that we're trying to do something, and we're trying to make a symbol for the future. 200 years later, this tree can actually be growing. So it's going to outlive us all. So we can't just think about our next generation. We have to think about the seventh generation principle.

That is a Haudenosaunee idea that we should consider seven generations as we make decisions for the future.

BLACKWELL: Where are you on celebration versus commemoration? Because, you know, 200 years of the Erie Canal. There's the criticism that this is not exclusively a celebration. And we're, of course, next year, 250th of America.

TRZECIAK: Yes.

BLACKWELL: Is this a celebration? Is it a commemoration? How do you strike? Again there's that word, the balance.

TRZECIAK: Yes, I'm going to say it's both, but I'm going to say it like this. We are commemorating the bicentennial of the Erie Canal. And when you commemorate history, and that's what you should do with history, you are looking into all of history. People died building this canal. How do you celebrate that? Right. The Irish played a huge role in making this canal a success, for example.

So, what we are trying to do is commemorate that, but we are celebrating. Make no mistake about it. But what we are celebrating is the community that can come together. This canal is all about, like I said, people overcoming obstacles. The Haudenosaunee are still here. They're resilient. Despite everything and all the efforts to remove them, they are flourishing. So that is one example of that.

But we are celebrating people along the way. I can't tell you how many people came up to me on this trip and to our crew and to people and just talked about what it took to build this boat that I'm on right now with over 200 volunteers. So that's something that we're really excited about. So we are celebrating that.

BLACKWELL: Brian Trzeciak, thank you so much for the conversation.

Our Confederate monuments that were taken down are now on display again. But not in the way that you might expect. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:51:57]

BLACKWELL: America just cannot seem to make up its mind about what to do with its monuments to the Confederacy. So after the tragedies of Charlottesville and Charleston and the protests of 2020, most Americans, most agreed for a hot minute to move on.

But now there's an effort to bring back some of the Confederate names that were changed and the monuments that were toppled.

Now in Los Angeles, starting this week, some monuments are back on display, but definitely not in the way their designers imagined. There's a new exhibit called MONUMENTS at the Brick and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. It's part conversation, part confrontation. I spoke with one of the creators of the project for Art Is Life.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HAMZA WALKER, DIRECTOR, THE BRICK: My name is Hamza Walker and I'm in Los Angeles, California, and I'm the director of the Brick. The name of the exhibition is MONUMENTS. The idea for the exhibition came about after the first I'm going to call it the first wave of decommissioned monuments, which took place after the events in Charlottesville in the summer of 2017 following the Unite the Right Valley.

And I took it as a moment when were ready to talk about the relationship between present day grievances and historical injustices. We now have 10 statues total. The relationship between the bronze statues, the monuments and the contemporary works, there are some that are contentious, some are confrontational, some of them rhyme, some of them are much more of call and response. From the outset, the idea was to approach Kara Walker as a co-curator of the exhibition.

She's best known for her cut paper silhouette portraiture. She's now also known for the large public project she's undertaken, the Sugar Sphinx that was on display in New York. The city of Charlottesville deeded The Brick, the decommissioned statue monument to Stonewall Jackson and we were able to give it to Kara to make a new piece.

The name of the piece is "Unmanned Drone." Kara has essentially reshuffled. She took the piece apart and reshuffled the parts. Instead of charging into battle, it's much more of a very ghastly, haunting figure dragging its sword, wandering through what I refer to as Civil War purgatory.

Sometimes timing can be everything. The exhibition has been in the works for eight years. There have been a lot of plot twists with respect to theme of monuments, Confederate monuments, the current backdrop. We couldn't pick, I would say, a more pointed time for the exhibition that has changed the perception of the exhibition.

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BLACKWELL: Now for more information you can check out the websites for The Brick and for the Museum of Contemporary Art. The exhibit runs through May of 2026.

Tomorrow night on CNN, tune in for an all new episode of CNN's original series "New Orleans: Soul of a City."

[08:55:00]

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RIEN FERTEL, HISTORIAN: We are a city that floods. We are a city living on the edge of precariousness every single day.

CAROLINE THOMAS, ART DIRECTOR, REX ORGANIZATION: I think for New Orleans, we found a way to kind of create this balance using Mardi Gras as a tool. No matter how difficult things are, you can still find an opportunity to find joy.

BIG CHIEF SHAKA ZULU, GOLDEN FEATHER NATION, I feel like this city has a lot to teach to the rest of the country because this is one of the few cities where we all can coexist in peace and harmony.

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BLACKWELL: New episode of "New Orleans: Soul of a City: airs tomorrow night at 10:00 Eastern and Pacific right here on CNN. And thank you for joining me today. I'll see you back here next Saturday at 8:00 a.m. Eastern. Smerconish is up after a break.

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