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WHO Warns of Man-made Mass Starvation in Gaza; UNRWA Says Humanitarian System Collapsing in Gaza Amid Starvation; Columbia University Makes a $220 Million-plus Deal With the Trump Administration; AFL-CIO Reports S&P CEOs Made 285 Times More Than Typical Worker; NASCAR Race at San Diego Navy Base for Nation's 250th Birthday. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired July 24, 2025 - 13:30   ET

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

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[13:30:08]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": The World Health Organization is warning of man-made mass starvation in Gaza due to Israel's blockade. Relief workers describe the Palestinian people as "walking corpses." And we do want to show you some of the horrific and heartbreaking images from the enclave. Take a look.

This is an 18-month-old Palestinian baby at a refugee camp near Gaza City, 18-months-old. You can see he is extremely emaciated, his belly swollen, his bones sticking out. He's just one of many starving children in Gaza. The United Nations Aid Group for Palestinian Refugees says one in every five children is malnourished and most are at high risk of dying.

Parents and family members are desperately trying to get what little food they can from soup kitchens like this one in Gaza City. But you can see the food is scarce and in fact, it's gotten so bad, even aid workers who are there to help are struggling with hunger.

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CAROLINE WILLEMEN, DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS, GAZA CITY: I have been doing this work for nine years. Never in my life have I seen -- have I been in a place where my own colleagues come to work hungry. My colleagues who have a job, who have a salary, cannot find food, are not able to feed their families, and these are the very healthcare workers supposed to take care.

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DEAN: Humanitarian groups are urging Israel to lift its blockade and allow more food and aid into Gaza. And CNN's Nic Robertson has more details now from the Kerem Shalom Border Crossing, one of the few areas where aid is able to get through to Gaza.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: These are aid trucks. We were just watching them being processed down the road. And I can see on the cardboard boxes, they have that logo, GHF, that's the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the Israeli-U.S. backed foundation that has these aid facilities set up, age distribution points set up inside of Gaza. And these are points that have come under a huge amount of criticism for the number of Palestinian deaths.

Palestinian medical officials say over a thousand people have been killed as they've tried to get aid from these distribution points. But what we're witnessing here right now is a movement it appears of more of those aid -- that aid that is passed out by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. But what the U.N. is telling us -- and I'm asking John to step this way with me a little bit -- actually, there's a couple more trucks coming through here. Get a better look of them.

When you see them here, they all -- they -- see GHF on the packaging. All these trucks here have a number on them. This one's numbered 14. I can see another one coming up behind it, Number 23. The aid that's been going in here according to international officials, according to the U.N., according to European leaders, is absolutely insufficient. This handful of trucks we have seen, a drop in the bucket according to what medical officials inside Gaza are saying is required.

One of the heads, the directors of one of the main hospitals inside of Gaza today said, what Gaza needs right now is 1,500 trucks like these every day for a month to alleviate the problem. What you'll see through here, this big empty car park space, two -- the four-wall border crossing into Gaza there, Kerem Shalom Border Crossing.

Beyond that, there are tens, if not hundreds, of U.N. humanitarian medical food aid waiting to get into Gaza. And that's been the big point of contention between the Israeli government and the U.N. The Israeli government say that they are passing food aid across this border into Gaza. What the U.N. officials are saying is, yes, but we can't just come and pick it up because the security restrictions, the bureaucratic restrictions on us to actually get to it and take it into Gaza is part of the problem.

And the Israeli government is saying, look, this is not correct. We are doing it on our side. The European leaders who've spoken out about this, the U.N. leaders who've spoken out about it have been very clear that they don't think that Israel is doing enough to help. That it is deliberately constricting the amount of aid getting through. But Israel says, look, don't blame it on us. We are doing our part. It's Hamas on the other side. Hamas is disrupting these aid distribution points. It is them and their fault.

But you have just had here a tiny snapshot of what happens at the border crossing. Of course, what we can't show you is all those trucks backed up on the other side, and that's the point of contention.

[13:35:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": All right, thanks to Nic Robertson for that. And we're joined now by Mara Kronenfeld. She is the Executive Director for UNRWA, USA, the non- profit that supports the work of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees in the Middle East. Your work, by the way, at the non-profit has drastically increased as UNRWA's funding has diminished significantly. So, just put the situation in Gaza into context for us. How bad is it right now?

MARA KRONENFELD, UNRWA, USA: Thank you, Brianna. And thank you for shedding additional light on what is essentially a catastrophic, indescribable situation on the ground in Gaza. We have received, just in the last couple of days, the employees at UNRWA, USA, email upon email of people begging, pleading for help at this moment. They're sending us photos of their own children, skin on bones.

They're telling us that their neighbors are fainting in the streets, that they can't even try to walk the kilometers to these so-called aid centers because they fear they will either die on the way or be shot, and they're having to make that choice. Do I risk death, or do I try to find some food to feed my children? Aid workers don't even have the food to keep them with the energy they need to continue to serve the population.

KEILAR: How are the workers of your non-profit doing physically and also mentally?

KRONENFELD: Yeah, so our non-profit is only about 10 people here in the U.S. We're watching day in and day out for 21 months. Of course, we're experiencing PTSD, but it's nothing compared to those of our colleagues who work with the U.N. agency on the ground. There's 12,000 of them to this day, again, risking their own lives, not able to find food themselves. We have 2 million people, including 1 million children, right now, facing the risk of starvation.

Our UNRWA colleagues are telling us that one in five children that they see in Gaza City are facing malnutrition. This is a crossroads, a new and terrible crossroads, and there's going to be a before and after. And it's time that people really wake up and see what is going on and demand that aid gets in, enough aid to feed 2 million people.

KEILAR: I hear the emotion in your voice. I can see it as you're sitting here next to me. Help us understand how you see what's happening, because there's two narratives, right? Israel is blaming international organizations for failing to distribute aid that has entered Gaza, a spokesperson for the U.N. Secretary General responded saying, Israeli authorities are preventing U.N. staff from reaching that aid. We've seen a blockade since the spring.

Israel says there is no famine caused by them. An Israeli government spokesperson said, there is, however, a man-made shortage engineered by Hamas. How -- just explain the drivers that you're seeing.

KRONENFELD: This is just -- it's really difficult to hear these words because, frankly, they're disingenuous at best and dark and cynical at worst. When UNRWA was in Gaza feeding people during the ceasefire, they were able to feed the entire population. UNRWA has 6,000 of the -- equivalent of 6,000 trucks of aid, emergency aid and medicine sitting just outside the border. Let that aid in.

What the Gaza, so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is distributing is a drop in the bucket. And UNRWA, it should be noted, along with U.N. partners, have had 75 years of the largest food operation on this planet. They know how to distribute food to those in need, and they know how to do it with transparency, integrity and with the dignity of those who are receiving that aid.

KEILAR: There have been a lot of problems with aid getting safely to Palestinians since the U.S. and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation started largely taking over aid distribution. This is an organization though that was supposed to address these concerns by Israel, that Hamas is stealing aid in Gaza, profiting off of its sale. How do you stop that from happening?

KRONENFELD: Again, these claims are disingenuous at best. The best way to make sure that food aid is not -- that the value of the food aid is not so high that people want to hoard it, is to flood the market. Flooding the market means putting as much aid in the hands of starving people right now. When you restrict the amount of aid, that increases the price of it, increases its value and increases the possibility that people might hoard it.

The difference right now is that Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is giving this aid out of four sites in the south of Gaza where -- and making populations of elderly, young, old, disabled walk kilometers to that aid. And we've seen it resulting in a thousand deaths at least, and injuries.

[13:40:00]

Whereas UNRWA and its U.N. partners had 400 sites where they gave the aid directly to those in need, where they're at and again, with transparency and dignity. We are seeing the utter opposite of that right now, unfortunately.

KEILAR: Mara Kronenfeld, thank you so much for being with us. We really appreciate it.

KRONENFELD: Thank you, Brianna.

KEILAR: And when we come back, Columbia University cuts a deal with the Trump Administration to get its federal funding back. We'll have much more on that, and what it could mean for Harvard's fight just ahead.

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DEAN: Columbia University's acting president is defending a more than $220 million deal with the Trump Administration. The deal restores federal funds to the school in exchange for that sizable settlement and a number of policy changes.

KEILAR: The Trump Administration pulled $400 million in funding earlier this year following campus protests over the Israel-Hamas war, officials accusing the school of discriminating against its Jewish students.

[13:45:00]

CNN's Betsy Klein is following this. Betsy, what are both sides saying about this deal? BETSY KLEIN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, Brianna, you mentioned that the Trump Administration revokes that $400 million in federal funding as they called on Columbia to do more to address anti-Semitism on campus. But officials really describe this as far more than that $400 million. It was billions of dollars at stake in future funding, really posing an existential threat to Columbia and the research that they conduct.

So after months of painstaking negotiation between officials at Columbia and the White House, they have reached a deal. Now, under this deal, Columbia did not admit to any wrongdoing but did agree to pay the federal government $200 million over three years, plus $21 million to settle U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission investigations. Now in return, the federal government is going to reinstate a vast majority of that frozen funding, but this really marks a broader push for a policy change on campus.

It has raised questions about academic freedom and the role of the federal government at our nation's colleges and universities. It is also something that President Trump believes is a winning political issue, but I want you to listen to how Acting University President, Claire Shipman, described the resolution here in an interview with our own Kate Baldwin earlier this morning.

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CLAIRE SHIPMAN, ACTING PRESIDENT, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: I am confident in the agreement we struck. We worked, again, on every word, so I am confident it does not cross our lines that were essential to us. I've had incredibly helpful, deep, thoughtful conversations with the leaders of other institutions and I really think we are all facing many of the same issues. And I understand there may be different choices made, but this was the responsible path for Columbia.

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KLEIN: Now, education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement that this marks a seismic shift for higher education and could prove -- provide a roadmap to other universities facing funding freezes. I caught up with her on the phone a little while ago and she said that she would like for Harvard to also have some sort of settlement resolution. She says that there could be a deal reached outside of the courts, Brianna and Jess.

DEAN: All right, Betsy Klein with the latest from the White House. Thanks for that. It's expected for the CEO to make more than a rank- and-file employee, but how much more? You might be surprised by just how wide the pay divide has become. We'll break it down next.

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[13:51:53]

DEAN: The wage gap between top executives and their workers, it was wide, but it's getting even worse. According to a new report from the AFL-CIO Union, its Executive Paywatch Report finds CEOs are making 285 times that of the average worker. That report looks at America's biggest companies and those in the S&P 500 Index. Starbucks had the widest pay gap. Its CEO, Brian Niccol, made 6,666 times more in 2024 than a typical employee. He made $98 million versus nearly $15,000 for one of his workers. CNN's Matt Egan is here with more, Matt, break down these pay differences for us.

MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, Jessica, it's no secret that America has an inequality problem, but the findings in this analysis are pretty stunning. So the AFL-CIO found that last year alone, the typical U.S. CEO of a public company brought in almost $19 million in salary, bonuses and stock awards. That is light years ahead of the nearly $50,000 a year that the typical worker made.

And not only that, but the gap between CEO pay and worker pay, it's going in the wrong direction. Right? Back in 2023, CEOs made 268 times what workers made. Last year, as you mentioned, it was 285 times. Now, the craziest stat in this report is the fact that if you had a typical worker making that nearly $50,000 a year, they would've had to have started working back in the year 1740 in order to earn what the average CEO made last year. Yes, 1740, as in decades before the Revolutionary War. Just a really staggering finding there.

Now, the good news for workers is, yes, their paychecks are going up. We've seen the private sector wages, they increased by about 3 percent last year. Paychecks are going up faster than prices, so that is encouraging. But they're not going up nearly as fast as CEO pay is. And the tax and spending package that President Trump signed into law earlier this month, it is going to benefit CEOs much, much more than the rank and file worker.

This report found that the tax break for the average CEO could be almost $500,000 from President Trump's Big, Beautiful Bill. That is well ahead of the under $1,000 for the typical U.S. worker. And so Jessica, that does mean that it is possible that the already significant gap between CEO pay and worker pay, it could get even wider in the coming years.

DEAN: Wow. Incredible numbers there. Matt Egan, thanks so much. Brianna?

KEILAR: In today's home front, I feel the need, the need for speed, and so does NASCAR, announcing a big event next year at Naval Base Coronado in San Diego, which happens to be the home of the original Top Gun.

[13:55:00]

The three races set for next June will be the first ever at an active military base and feature only the second street course in NASCAR's modern era. The sports drivers are known, of course, for their left turns. So the question is, can they hack it with the Navy? Well, the Navy kidnapped some drivers to find out.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gentlemen, you are here because NASCAR wants you to have a street race on this base.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Man, it's pretty sick, huh?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, you think this is sick? If you want to race here, you got to show honor, courage, and commitment. You boys think you know speed? You haven't felt real speed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're going to flip you. They're going to twist you. And just when you think you've reached your limit, they're going to punch a hole in the sky and drag you with them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You've got to do some of that pilot (inaudible).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can't be any worse than your driving.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sick bird, Peaches.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: The three races at Coronado will celebrate America's 250th birthday. So if you want to go, call the goose to your maverick and start planning. The races are Father's Day weekend 2026 and tickets go on sale this fall. Still ahead, we are learning more about the sudden death of wrestling legend, Hulk Hogan, from police. Stay with us for that.

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