[Wolf Blitzer, Cnn Anchor:] Happening now, breaking news. Chaos ensues. President Trump's executive order on migrant family separations is causing confusion as the administration struggles to explain what happens now. And the president's latest remarks are only adding to the uncertainty. Full message jacket. First lady Melania Trump pays a surprise visit to a Texas facility housing detained migrant children, but her unusual fashion choice steals the show. What do the cryptic words on her jacket mean? And who are they aimed at? Detention nightmare. Disturbing allegations against facilities housing detained migrant children, including abuse and forcing them to take mood-changing drugs. We're learning new details. And Putin on a summit. President Trump says he's considering meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin next month. Where will they meet, and what tone will President Trump take with his Russian counterpart? I'm Wolf Blitzer. You're in
[The Situation Room. Announcer:] This is CNN breaking news.
[Blitzer:] We're following breaking news. The Trump administration now asking a judge for permission to hold detained migrant children past the current 20-day limit in the wake of President Trump's order aimed at ending family separation. But the president's reversal on its controversial policy has only sparked more confusion, and it remains unclear whether any of the 2,300 children taken from their parents in recent weeks will be reunited with them any time soon. We'll talk about it with the president of the National Border Patrol Council, Brandon Judd. And our specialists and analysts are all standing by. First, let's go straight to our chief White House correspondent, Jim Acosta. Jim, the chaos around this crisis continues despite the president's executive order.
[Jim Acosta, Cnn Chief White House Correspondent:] It sure does, Wolf. The White House is struggling tonight to explain what is happening to the children who were separated from their parents at the border. Today, the president said his executive order ending the practice may only be, quote, "limited." And the first lady, who was trying to show her compassion with a visit to the border earlier today, stepped on her own message with a jacket that has to be seen to be believed.
[Acosta:] It was a tale of two Trumps. While the first lady attempted to show sympathy, visiting the children taken from their migrant parents at the border, the president was creating more confusion, telling his cabinet that his executive order aimed at ending the family separations is limited.
[Donald Trump , President Of The United States:] I signed a very good executive order yesterday, but that's only limited. No matter how you cut it, it leads to separation, ultimately.
[Acosta:] The president also tried to downplay the conditions inside the facilities, where the children are being held against their will.
[Trump:] We have a situation where some of these places, they're really running them well. It's the nicest that people have seen.
[Acosta:] Mr. Trump was playing politics, accusing Democrats of seeking to turn the detention spaces into resorts.
[Trump:] They want us to take care of bed space and resources and personnel and take everybody and, you know, like, let's run the most luxurious hotel in the world for everybody. But they don't want to give us the money.
[Acosta:] The president also falsely accused Democrats of sparking the crisis his administration started.
[Trump:] They've created, and they've let it happen, a massive child smuggling industry.
[Acosta:] Despite the searing images of suffering children seen around the world, the president sounded detached and bitter.
[Trump:] They walk through a Mexico like it's walking through Central Park.
[Acosta:] Democrats pushed back on the notion they're to blame.
[Rep. Mazie Hirono , Hawaii:] You know what my strong reaction to that is? It's a lie. So for the president to constantly say that we are against immigration reform that makes sense, that is humane, it's a lie, and in fact, he is the one who is creating chaos at every turn.
[Melania Trump, First Lady:] Thank you so much. I heard you have 58 children here?
[Unidentified Female:] Right.
[M. Trump:] Fifty-five. Oh, oh.
[Acosta:] Down at the border, the first lady toured one facility for the separated children that looked more like an elementary school and less like the jail shown in some photos from the region. Mrs. Trump wanted to know how the children are coping.
[M. Trump:] When the children come here, what kind of stage, you know, physical and mental stage they come here?
[Unidentified Female:] When they get here, they're very distraught.
[Acosta:] And she asked how she could lend a hand.
[M. Trump:] And I also like to ask you how I can help. To these children to reunite with their families as quickly as possible.
[Acosta:] But it was the message on the back that created a stir: "I really don't care. Do U?" was the question scrawled across the jacket she wore as she left for Texas. The first lady's office said in a statement there was no hidden message. Now, as for that jacket, a White House official tells CNN in just the last several minutes that that jacket worn by the first lady was not a message aimed at her husband, the president. Of course, we have been reporting earlier today, Wolf, that there was potentially some disagreement between the first lady and the president about going down there. That she was planning to go down there without, really, his approval, and that he finally gave that approval to the first lady for this trip. Now, as for the Trump administration, we have yet to hear any kind of answers in terms of any sort of basic questions in terms of how these children are going to be reunited with their parents in the coming days. Asked about these pending reunifications, the homeland security secretary told reporters there is a plan for that. But she didn't she didn't say what it was. And multiple officials are telling us, Wolf, today agencies are still awaiting guidance. And of course, so are the kids.
[Blitzer:] Yes. They're clearly scrambling, those officials. All right. Jim Acosta at the White House, thank you. Let's get some more from our chief political correspondent, Dana Bash. Dana, how did this trip by the first lady come about?
[Dana Bash, Cnn Chief Political Correspondent:] Well, she apparently decided on her own a couple of days ago, before the president signed the executive order yesterday, that she wanted to go down. She wanted to see firsthand what was happening on the border. She'd already tweeted several days ago and made it very clear that she was concerned about this. And we actually heard from the president that she had privately said to him on several occasions, "We have to find a way to fix this." And look, it is significant in that after, you know, what? More than a week plus of these images blaring out to the world, this is the first time somebody in the Trump inner circle has gone down to see firsthand what exactly is happening at the border as a result of the president and his administration's policies. So that's what she did. She certainly, as Jim said, toured a facility that is pretty well-run. It is a place run by the Department of HHS, Health and Human Services, where they have mostly children who come across the board unaccompanied, about five or six who are actually taken away from their parents because of the separation policy. But it certainly is and was significant that the first lady wanted to go down there and show the compassionate side, especially the juxtaposition between that and the very, very harsh language we heard about the same time from her husband.
[Blitzer:] Yes, that difference was stark. Kate Bennett, our White House reporter, traveled with the first lady to Texas today. She's joining us on the phone right now. So Kate, update us on the latest information you're getting and also, there's a lot of interest, clearly, in the jacket she was wearing and what it said.
[Kate Bennett, Cnn White House Correspondent:] That's right, Wolf. We literally just touched down here back in Washington with the first lady. Certainly, a lot of the focus has been on this jacket and why she was wearing it. We observed her getting on the plane earlier this morning. We could not read the writing on it because of where we were positioned under the wing of the plane. It was too far away. But, you know, as the story broke, as we were flying back, it certainly is extremely curious. She was not wearing the jacket when she exited the plane in Texas. Nor did she wear it to the facility to visit the children or back up on the plane. So I'm not sure quite what the reasoning was behind that. Certainly, she is not one who has worn messaging before so blatantly on her clothes, which is a questionable incident. Her spokeswoman is saying this is not something to focus on. Focus on her good work. This is not about a jacket. However, clearly, it's captured the attention of people on this trip.
[Blitzer:] Yes. Certainly, she's clearly that didn't happen by accident. She was deliberately trying to say something. The question is what was she saying? The words on the back of that jacket: "I really don't care. Do U?" question mark. So everybody agrees she did it for a reason. We don't know what the reason was.
[Bennett:] Yes. I mean, listen, I follow the first lady pretty closely. I follow a lot of her fashion choices. I've been the one who's often said she doesn't do anything by accident. She's not a first lady who has coincidences, and most of her fashion choices do send a message. You know, when we were abroad, her outfits reflected the country that was hosting her. She wore that white pantsuit to the State of the Union. You know, certainly, these are thoughtful things she does. It is to me very unclear who or what that messaging was for.
[Blitzer:] It wasn't some sort of designer jacket. This was a pretty cheap jacket, if you will. You're going to tell us about that. But let me read the statement from the first lady's press secretary, who said this. And I'll read it to our viewers: "It's a jacket. There was no hidden message." This is not the first time, though, she seems to have acted independently, but talk a little bit about the exact jacket.
[Bennett:] So the jacket is by Zara, which is a Spanish-based company. Certainly, it's very there are Zaras in shopping malls and all over the world, literally all over the world. It's known for sort of doing trendy clothes that are knockoffs of designer at lower prices. This particular jacket on Zara's web site is listed for $39. Certainly, not in the price range of what the first lady typically wears, which are often designer clothes, you know, as Michelle Obama did, you know. This is the first lady who is sartorially knowledgeable. She used to be a fashion model. Certainly, the jacket of a $39 Zara jacket is, again, a sort of curious blip in this day. Again, as 13 or so members of the press boarded her plane today, we were unaware of what the jacket said from the back. We did notice that she changed, of course, which she often does on the plane and was wearing something different when she landed.
[Blitzer:] I'm glad you traveled with her, Kate. So Dana, what was the messaging here on this critically important day?
[Bash:] Well, it was obviously confused messaging, and this is going to sound maybe like this doesn't pan out in our linear thing, but I'm going to say, but it was confused messaging on purpose. This was a jacket that, as Kate said, and as she's reported so many times, that, obviously, the first lady wore on purpose. Was it aimed at somebody in her family? Was it aimed at somebody else? We don't know. But I was just texting back and forth with somebody who's in Trump world, who thought that maybe it was a message to the people who cover her, to the media saying, you know, "I know that you focus on what I wear and I'm going to wear this in order for you to sort of speculate about it," and maybe try to make the media look like they are, you know, sort of trying to dumb down what she did. But the fact that that is something that we have to discuss, the fact that this is something that we're that people are trying to sort of crack the code of the jacket, really does beg the question about why she wanted to do this when the message that she was trying to send and is trying to send is so important about having compassion for these as an immigrant herself, having passion for these these families and particularly these children who are at the border.
[Blitzer:] Yes, that jacket clearly taking away from the much more important issue at hand, what's happening with these families, what's happening with the kids. I want to get back to that. Dana and Kate, guys, thank you very much. Let's have some more on the breaking news right now. The president of the National Border Patrol Council, Brandon Judd, is joining us. Brandon, thank you very much for joining us. And thank you to the 15,000 men and women of the Border Patrol who do important work protecting the country. Lots of questions right now about the president's executive order that's now being implemented. Have you been given written guidance on how to carry out this executive order and what it will mean for families?
[Brandon Judd, President, National Border Patrol Council:] Not yet, but what I can tell you is that I had a meeting that was scheduled with Commissioner McAleenan. That meeting has now been pushed back and most likely will be postponed. This commissioner is very conscientious. He made his rank under the Obama administration. And now he was appointed as the commissioner under the Trump administration. A very moderate individual, and he is going to get it done. I expect that we're going to have the instructions here very shortly.
[Blitzer:] But before orders like this are given to have zero-tolerance policy that order was given in April. And now to reverse that policy yesterday. Don't you think the men and women of the Border Patrol need to know how this impacts their day-to-day jobs?
[Judd:] We operate on the fly all the time. We're going to be able to adjust very, very quickly. We're going to be able to understand, once that executive order was signed, exactly what we need to do, because we've been doing this for a long time and because we've been dealing with crises like this for years upon end. We're going to be able to adjust on the fly.
[Blitzer:] And I have the executive order that the president signed yesterday. What did it change from yesterday to today for the Border Patrol?
[Judd:] What it means is whenever we take these children into custody now, we're going to have to separate children from parents initially, especially if they don't have documentation to prove that these are their children, because one of the things that we have to look at is we have to look at are these children being exploited? Are they being brought in for sex trafficking? So initially, we're going to have to separate them, but we're going to bring them back immediately, and we're going to make sure that we can we hold them in the in the same facilities without separating over a long-term period of time.
[Blitzer:] Of course. I can understand if the elder person, the older person is not the parent and they're just smuggling some kid into the United States. But what if they're the real parents and the children are taken away by your fellow Border Patrol agents? That seems so cruel.
[Judd:] You know, that's something that we're never going to look at and say this is something that we were happy doing. But in reality, if you look at what we were actually doing, when we took people into custody, we would keep them together until they had to go see a magistrate. Once they went and saw a magistrate judge, whatever that sentence the magistrate judge gave is what that judge gave. And if that judge separated them, then they would they were supposed to be reunited shortly thereafter. But in the vast majority of cases, a judge would give them time served. They'll be they'll be separated from their children for about seven to 12 hours and then reunited almost immediately.
[Blitzer:] But that's changed. There's 2,300 kids right now who have been separated for days and days and days.
[Judd:] There are, and there are certain extreme cases in those 2,300. For instance, a week ago I said earlier today, I said four days, but about a week ago, there was one person that we arrested that had a conviction for rape in the United States. He had a 7-year-old daughter with him. We separated those two, and we're not going to reunite those two until the court system plays out. Now, that is an extreme case and of those 2,300, there are less extreme cases. But in a lot of those cases, there are very extreme cases. We have to dig deep into this, and we have to look deep.
[Blitzer:] I know the president values your opinion. You served on his transition team. Were you consulted at all with the initial decision to do this zero-tolerance and the subsequent executive order that reversed that decision?
[Judd:] No. I wasn't I wasn't consulted on the zero-tolerance policy. But yes, I did absolutely present concerns to the agency on what was happening under the zero-tolerance policy and how we could make it better or how we could loosen it up. I did have a role in that, yes.
[Blitzer:] You did have a role in that. The president keeps saying, and he said it again today, these people trying to cross into the United States are all criminals, drug smugglers, gang members. You and the men and women of the Border Patrol deal with them on a daily basis. Is that accurate?
[Judd:] Well, I go back to, again, about a week ago, we just had an agent that was shot. A couple months before that, we had an agent that tried to take individuals into custody. One individual got his gun, put his gun to that agent's head.
[Blitzer:] Those are extreme cases.
[Judd:] Those are extreme cases.
[Blitzer:] Most people trying to come to the United States are escaping gang violence.
[Judd:] I will agree with that.
[Blitzer:] And they're trying to trying to have a better life.
[Judd:] I will
[Blitzer:] Seeking political asylum.
[Judd:] The vast majority of the individuals that we encounter are very polite, very respectful individuals. It's about 20 percent that we deal with that have criminal records. The problem that we have, though, is we don't know what their criminal records in their own countries, and so we have to be very careful.
[Blitzer:] That's only a small percentage. But that's not necessarily the message we hear from the president, either in his speech last night in Duluth or today in his cabinet meeting. He makes it sound like almost all of these people trying to come into the United States are killers or rapists or drug dealers.
[Judd:] Now, if he's if he's purposely trying to do that, then that's not true. The fact of the matter is, is we do deal with an awful lot of people that do have criminal records in the United States. Some of them very bad criminal records. Wanted for murder. Warrants for rape. For child pornography. For all kinds of things. But yes. The truth is that the vast majority of the people we deal with are very polite, respectful individuals. We just don't know who when we're going to be dealing with those people or when when a situation's going to turn bad very fast.
[Blitzer:] In the executive order the president signed yesterday, as you know, one of the provisions was to get a court order to allow the government to hold these children for more than 20 days, and in fact, the government filed a suit today to try to do that. What do you think about that? About holding, detaining these kids for more than 20 days?
[Judd:] That's not going to fly, because the court decisions are very, very clear that we're not going to be able to hold the children for more than 20 days. What I will tell you is, is I am very concerned about the magnets that draw people to the United States. We arrest people, and they flat-out tell us that "We gave ourselves up, because we know you're going to release us." And the problem with that is, is what we see is the smugglers force them to cross the border between the ports of entry, because they know it's going to tie up my resources. And when my hands are tied up, and I pull agents out of the field to process these people, the drug smugglers or the traffickers of any illegal contraband create holes in the border and they run their higher-profit contraband through the holes that they create. If these individuals would present themselves at ports of entry, which is a legal process, then it frees up the Border Patrol to deal with the criminality and the cartels and the smugglers.
[Blitzer:] If the courts reject the administration's request to be able to hold these kids for more than 20 days, what's going to happen to them and what's going to happen to their parents?
[Judd:] What we're going to have to do is we're going to have to release them under what is called the catch and release program.
[Blitzer:] The president flatly said today he doesn't he will never allow catch and release which was has been, at least until now, the U.S. government's policy.
[Judd:] It's impossible. It's impossible to not separate the family unless the catch and release unless the catch and release policy takes effect again. We can't hold the children for more than 20 days. Therefore, we can't hold the parents for more than 20 days. It takes it takes about six to nine months for a deportation proceeding to see from the beginning to the end. We just can't hold people that long.
[Blitzer:] I'm surprised the president hasn't call you into the Oval Office yet, because you've got years and years of experience. If he does call you in, tell our viewers right now what you would tell him, how you would solve this problem.
[Judd:] Well, I'm going to look back in April of 2017, and what's most disappointing to me is, in April of 2017, we hit the low- water mark. We only had 11,000 apprehensions. The vast majority of those were single males. We had very few children. We had very few family units. Had we have implemented the zero-tolerance policy at that time, we had the chance to keep the numbers low. Look, whether you're on the right, whether you're on the left, people want secure borders. You can't have secure borders if we're going to allow the criminal cartels to dictate to us how we how we effectuate our operations. We have to be able to dictate to them, and that's what's happened for too long.
[Blitzer:] But from your perspective, and you have a lot of experience, catch and release is going to continue, at least for the foreseeable future?
[Judd:] There's no way it can stop.
[Blitzer:] Brandon, thank you very much, and thank your colleagues in the Border Patrol for all of their really important work they're doing.
[Judd:] Thank you.
[Blitzer:] Appreciate it very much. Brandon Judd is the president of the National Border Patrol Council. Up next, a CNN investigation uncovers allegations of children being drugged and abused at facilities housing detained migrants. Plus, a possible July meeting between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. We're learning new information tonight. Stay with us.