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U.S. Government Shutdown is Brewing After House Rejects Trump's Plan; U.S. Envoy Meet with New Syrian Leaders; Syrian Refugees Return Home, Some Fear; Israel Accused of Ethnic Cleansing by MSF; Amazon Drivers on Strike Days Before Christmas; Luigi Mangione Face Charges in Two States; 51 Men Convicted in the Drugging and Rape Trial of Gisele Pelicot; Putin Holds Ritualistic Annual Press Conference; Fertility Treatment Used To Save Northern White Rhinos. Aired 2-2:45a ET

Aired December 20, 2024 - 02:00   ET

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

[02:00:00]

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KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN HOST: Welcome all you watching us around the world, I'm Kim Brunhuber. This is "CNN Newsroom."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): This is Washington. This is how the lawmaking is done.

It is, I think, really irresponsible for us to risk a shutdown over these issues on things that they have already agreed upon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: Lawmakers play the blame game as Washington spirals towards a government shutdown.

Syrians forcibly displaced by a brutal regime are debating going back home, but some won't have an option.

And is the breakthrough program to save Africa's northern white rhino population working? I'll speak to one of the scientists.

BRUNHUBER: It's 2:00 a.m. in Washington where U.S. lawmakers have less than 24 hours to negotiate a funding plan that will avoid sending the federal government tumbling into a shutdown.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNSON: We will regroup and we will come up with another solution, so stay tuned.

UNKNOWN: Will you drop the deadline at demand? (ph).

(END VIDEO CLIP) BRUNHUBER: House Speaker Mike Johnson is now seeking a Plan C after a bipartisan revolt over suspending the debt limit sank his Trump-backed bill on Thursday. Republicans scrambled to revamp a deal that had bipartisan support with pressure from the president-elect and his tech billionaire adviser Elon Musk sent Washington into chaos. Nearly all Democrats and some Republicans voted against it and now there's finger-pointing across the aisle.

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REP. MIKE LAWLER (R-NY): We do need to rein in the size and scope of the federal government. The problem right now is Joe Biden is the president of the United States. And by the way, where is he? Has anybody heard from him? He has not even weighed in on this subject matter.

REP. RICH MCCORMICK (R-GA): Last time I checked; Elon Musk doesn't have a vote in Congress. Now he has influence, and he'll put pressure on us to do whatever he thinks the right thing is for him. But I have 760,000 people that voted for me to do the right thing for them and that's what matters to me.

REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-WA): What I'm concerned about is that a billionaire who is not even elected is acting like a shadow president and doing the work that Republicans have to do here. They are in the majority and so no I'm not concerned that we're going to get blamed. This is clearly on the Republicans. We had a negotiated deal. We could have all gone home tonight.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: CNN's Manu Raju reports from Capitol Hill.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Even though Donald Trump tried to pressure Republicans to fall in line behind this 11th hour effort to avoid a government shutdown, he got bucked by 38 members of his own party, as well as Democrats who voted en masse against this proposal to avoid a government shutdown. One big reason why, it included a provision to suspend the national debt limit for two years.

Remember that issue of a debt limit was a complex, complicated issue that typically Congress stands weeks, if not months, to try to negotiate. No one wants to vote really to raise the borrowing limit in the United States. And Donald Trump does not want this to be part of his first-year agenda. So he wants to take it off the table now. He's saying, deal with it now, and so he doesn't have to worry about when he's president.

But there's a problem. There are Republicans in the ranks who say that they will never vote for a debt limit increase, especially if it does not have spending cuts.

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REP. TIM BURCHETT (R-TN): This just stinks. That's why America doesn't trust government, and it's for good dead-gum reason.

RAJU: And you said, shut it down.

BURCHETT: If that's what it takes to bring us to the table.

REP. BOB GOOD (R-VA): Any extra supplemental ought to stand on its own merits, not be attached to it, and it ought to have pay-fors. And the debt limit must not be increased without commensurate spending cuts and fiscal reform.

REP. ERIC BURLISON (R-MO): When I ran for office, I said that I would not vote to raise the debt ceiling. And so I've never voted to raise the debt ceiling. And I mean, I love Donald Trump, but he didn't vote me into office. My district did.

RAJU: You want to shut it down?

BURLISON: I'm not afraid of a shutdown.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Now, this all comes as Donald Trump, of course, intervened late in this whole process. There was a bipartisan deal that was on the glide path to becoming law to avert a government shutdown. But then when Trump intervened late and said that he wanted the debt limit increase to be part of this plan and he berated that bipartisan deal that Mike Johnson cut. As a result, it's left Congress scrambling to try to figure out a solution.

And now that the Plan B has failed, Mike Johnson is trying to figure out if there's any way to avoid a government shutdown that will occur at midnight to Saturday morning. And how long that could last remain a major question.

[02:04:58]

The two sides are on opposite sides on how to resolve an issue that could be crippling to so many Americans who rely on government services, government employees, contractors, and the like as a shutdown now looms in just a matter of hours. Manu Raju, CNN, Capitol Hill.

BRUNHUBER: A U.S. delegation is in Syria's capital right now to meet with the interim government leaders. It's the first in-person visit to Damascus by U.S. officials since the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The White House has tapped former ambassador and Syria envoy Daniel Rubenstein to lead the effort in the final weeks of the Biden administration.

The State Department says U.S. officials will meet with the group that now comprises Syria's de facto government to discuss the transition and other issues. The U.S., the U.N. and other countries have designated that group as a terrorist organization. The head of Syria's new government said in an interview with the BBC that Syria isn't a threat to the world and called for international sanctions to be lifted. Now, many Syrian refugees are eager to return home now that the Assad

regime has fallen. It's a day millions in the Syrian diaspora had been waiting years to see, but mixed with hope for the future, some are afraid the current instability could lead to further chaos for Syria. CNN's Salma Abdelaziz reports.

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SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Before Ahmad Morjan hugs his mother for the first time in 13 years, they both kneel in prayer. Gratitude for a reunion they never believed would come. This is one of many emotional homecomings across Syria after the sudden fall of the Assad regime.

At just 19 years old, with security forces hunting him down, Morjan fled his family's home in Aleppo. Here he is in 2016. Reporting for an opposition-based media network as barrel bombs rained down from the sky. Later that year, Morjan filmed the exodus as thousands withdrew from the last remaining rebel enclave in Aleppo.

We are leaving with our dignity, Morjan says in this clip, and we will return one day. That promised return is now finally on the horizon. Morjan says he is planning to move back to Aleppo from Gaziantep, Turkey, where he currently lives with his wife and their two young daughters.

(On camera): What is your dream now for Syria's future?

AHMAR MORJAN (through translation): I'm optimistic about the future, he says, and I have huge hope that the country will be better than before.

ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): But not all are keen to hurry back to an unstable country with an uncertain future, says this human rights defender.

HUSSAM KASSAS, SYRIAN ASYLUM SEEKER: There's no sustainable peace, which makes me really afraid of getting back there.

ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): Hassam Kassas, who is seeking asylum in the United Kingdom, is among tens of thousands of Syrians, whose applications for asylum were suspended after the U.K. and other European countries paused the process to reassess now that the threat of Assad is gone. For years, Kassas has documented potential war crimes committed by all major parties to the conflict. If he goes back, he says, his family could be targeted or worse.

(On camera): Why do you not feel safe to return?

KASSAS: We expected a lot of revenge killing will happen. Those soldiers will seek revenge from the people who were trying to help them accountable actually.

ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): Many Syrians in the diaspora long to return and rebuild. But this moment of great hope brings with it great uncertainty. Salma Abdelaziz, CNN, London. (END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: All right, I want to bring in Anwar Al-Bunni, a Syrian human rights lawyer and one of the founders of the Syrian Human Rights Association, and he's in Berlin. Thank you so much for being here with us. So, you seem to have a lot in common with one of the gentlemen we just saw in that report. So I just want to ask you, first off, what is your read on the rebels as a government? For many Syrians and Syrian expats like yourself, it seems to be this sort of mixture of optimism and fear. So where are you on that continuum?

ANWAR AL-BUNNI, SYRIAN HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYER: Good morning, Kim and everybody here. I am so optimistic. I am so optimistic and maybe I am concerned, worried somehow but in general I am optimistic because I believe in the Syrians. I believe there is no -- now anybody can force Syrians to follow any ideology.

[02:10:00]

The Syrians who test freedom, they will not let it down anymore. Besides, Syrians want to -- most of them want to build democracies and if we stay here outside, we will let others to grow our future. So we must to be there and fight peacefully also to get our democracies countries (ph).

BRUNHUBER: Much of the fear centers around how they will treat minorities like Kurds and Christians like yourself.

AL-BUNNI: Until now, all the signs, it's positive. Until now, there is no -- we expect before there will be a lot of blood, but that's a very good sign. There is not much violence. There is something happened here or there. But everybody knows the rebels, it's not one side. It's not HTC. So there is another group who maybe like ISIS, but there is other group also that is like and support the democratic country.

So it's need time to separate and let the process go on and the people will appear themselves and at last the Syrian democracies will build. So we will fight peacefully there, not from outside and be worried and, oh, okay, I am afraid it's not the solution, I think.

BRUNHUBER: Okay, so it sounds like you're optimistic and you want to go back to Syria, is that right?

AL-BUNNI: Yeah, for sure. We have a lot of work here following the criminals, and we suppose, most of them, or some of the criminals who run away now from Syria, they will find the Europe as safe place to them. We will waiting for them, beside we will following the old refugees who came earlier to Europe and U.S. And maybe you heard about Sameer Sheikh (ph) case. I will be in United States in 21 of January to be testified in this case.

So we have a lot of work here but our team in Syria now working from the first minute, collect evidence, separate the education of human rights, of rule of law, of constitution. So we never will give up or waiting somebody to draw our future. We will fight for our future. BRUNHUBER: There's certainly a lot of work to do documenting all

those human rights abuses, considering all the evidence that we're seeing come out of mass graves and so on. So you will certainly have your work cut out for you. In terms of going back, I mean, I framed that for you as a choice, but now that the Assad regime has fallen, some countries are considering sending Syrian refugees back, forcing them to go back.

Austria, for instance, has said that it'll look at deporting Syrians now. How worried are you that you, others in countries like Germany where you are -- who might not want to go back, but we'd be forced back against their will?

AL-BUNNI: I Don't think any -- I don't think any Syrians will force back or the Syrians want to go back. I knew that. But there is some of them will stay forever in Syria, and some of them they will go and back to visit to stay there to maybe have a new business in Syria, and they keep their business in Europe.

So I don't think, I mean, until now, any country will force any Syrians to go back, because Syrians in Europe community, they go inside their community, they work, they create business, they create -- they add to the community of Europe many values. So it's -- some voice here or there say that like that, but I don't think it will be true.

BRUNHUBER: All right. We'll see. Certainly, it's not a monolithic community, as we heard in that report preceding you. Some are quite worried that this new government might be more radical than it's letting on. We'll certainly have to leave it there, but really appreciate having you on Anwar al-Bunni in Berlin. Thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it.

Medecins Sans Frontieres or Doctors Without Borders is accusing Israel of ethnic cleansing in Gaza in a new report published Thursday. Israel has denied allegations of ethnic cleansing in the past, saying its goal is to wipe out Hamas.

[02:15:02]

A groups claim the IDF isn't allowing enough supplies into Gaza as the war rages on. CNN's Jeremy Diamond traveled to the Kerem-Shalom Crossing and spoke to an Israeli official about the worsening humanitarian crisis.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: We are on the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom Crossing where you are seeing pallets of humanitarian aid being offloaded here. But the problem is this aid simply isn't getting to the people of Gaza in the quantities that are needed. Humanitarian aid agencies say that the Israeli government and the Israeli military are to blame for that, not facilitating the safe distribution of aid.

The Israelis deny that. They insist that enough aid is getting into Gaza and that they are facilitating that aid. But I pressed one of the top Israeli officials responsible for getting that aid in on that very question.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

They say that the issues are the Israeli military's unwillingness to facilitate safe distribution of aid.

ABDULLAH HALABI, ISRAELI COORDINATION AND LIAISON ADMINISTRATION: No, the Israeli troops on the (inaudible) side just in the last few weeks facilitated several options in order to enter the aid to the Gazan side.

DIAMOND: Does your role stop at this checkpoint? Do you believe that your role stops at this checkpoint? That you're not responsible for how safely the aid can get distributed inside of Gaza?

HALABI: The international community is responsible to deliver the aid from the crossing points to the people of Gaza. It's their responsibility.

DIAMOND: But don't you have responsibility for making it safe?

HALABI: We facilitated the crossings and the aid, till the crossing. We inspect the aid. We put it in the platforms, and we encourage the humanitarian community and the organizations to come and to take the aid. The main problem, the main obstacle is the capabilities distribution.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DIAMOND: Amid that dispute between the aid agencies and the Israeli military, these pallets of aid, they are piling up. And this isn't a theoretical problem. We are seeing that the humanitarian conditions in Gaza, they simply aren't getting better. In fact, there's a lot of chance that it could get worse. With the arrival of winter, the rains, the need for shelter is rising.

Respiratory illnesses are rising, and people are sometimes going without for days. Of course, a ceasefire deal could improve all of this, bringing an enormous flow of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip. We know that those negotiations, of course, are ongoing. Jeremy Diamond, CNN, on the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom Crossing.

BRUNHUBER: suspected CEO killer Luigi Mangione arrived in New York to face murder charges escorted by police, the FBI and even the city's mayor. New details about Mangione's alleged motivation to kill, next here on CNN.

Plus, Amazon drivers across the U.S. are going on strike just days before Christmas, but the company is saying about the possible impact on the holiday rush that's all coming up after the break. Please stay with us.

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[02:20:00] BRUNHUBER: Thousands of U.S. Starbucks workers are set to go on strike in the coming hours. Their union says the walkout will take place in Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle and Washington and other cities might be added through Christmas Eve. The union says Starbucks hasn't met its demand for immediate and future pay raises. The union has struck Starbucks several times in the past, but many stores stayed open because managers and workers from non-union stores replaced the strikers.

Thousands of Amazon drivers went on strike in four U.S. states on Thursday with less than a week to go before Christmas. The company is promising it won't affect holiday deliveries, arguing that these aren't official Amazon employees. Members of the Teamsters Union are striking at seven facilities, claiming to represent about 7,000 Amazon workers nationwide. But these drivers work for other companies that are contracted by Amazon, so Amazon says it isn't required to negotiate with them.

Well, that's not how the workers feel, with some saying they're struggling to put Christmas presents under the tree this year.

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UNKNOWN: We're gonna be fighting until we get what we deserve.

UNKNOWN: We want a living wage; we live in one of the most expensive cities in the country. We want to be able to afford to live here.

UNKNOWN: When you look at other companies like UPS, they are doing a lower volume now and they're getting paid a lot more than we're getting paid and we're getting more volume and less pay. That don't seem fair to us.

UNKNOWN: We already came to that conclusion that we were not recognized even though we are the face of Amazon. We wear the uniform; we drive the trucks. When we pull up to your house you say, oh, that's Amazon, not that's Samantha or that's this, we're Amazon. We should be recognized as such.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: It was a whirlwind day for accused CEO killer Luigi Mangione. He had appearances in three courtrooms in two states and was hit with new charges that could bring the death penalty. Two weeks after the deadly shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a Manhattan sidewalk, court documents are revealing new information about Mangione's alleged motivation. Kara Scannell reports.

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KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORREPONDENT (voice-over): Accused killer Luigi Mangione, back in New York and behind bars. New video showing him handcuffed and in an orange jumpsuit stepping off a helicopter and being escorted toward a transport van by scores of armed officers. Mangione is now also facing federal charges in the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel. (On camera): Karen, do you have any comment on these charges today?

KAREN AGNIFILO, LUIGI MANGIONE'S DEFENSE LAWYER: Not at this time. Thank you so much.

SCANNELL (voice-over): Mangione's high-profile defense team not saying much about the new charges before and after their client's first appearance in federal court. Inside, Mangione traded the jumpsuit for street clothes as he entered the courtroom flanked by marshals with his ankles shackled. His federal charges are a firearms offense, two stalking charges, and murder through the use of a firearm, which carries a potential maximum sentence of the death penalty or life in prison.

Mangione did not enter a plea and his defense team did not seek bail. The new federal criminal complaint also revealing new details about a notebook found on Mangione during his arrest at an Altoona, Pennsylvania McDonald's. According to the complaint, the notebook contained several handwritten pages that expressed hostility toward the health insurance industry.

And one entry dated October 22, 2024, less than two months before the murder of Thompson describes an intent to quote, "whack one of the CEOs at an insurance industry conference." The federal charges are added to the long list of state charges he's already facing.

ALVIN BRAGG, NEW YORK DISTRICT ATTORNEY: We charged him here in Manhattan earlier this week with murder in the first degree among additional charges which carry the maximum sentence of life without parole. We've had state prosecutions and federal prosecutions proceed as parallel matters and we're in conversations with our law enforcement counterparts.

SCANNELL (voice-over): Mangione began his day in a Pennsylvania courtroom where he had two back-to-back hearings. First on the firearm and forgery charges brought against him in Pennsylvania, second to waive his extradition to New York.

PETE WEEKS, BLAIR COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA DISTRICT ATTORNEY: He committed crimes in Blair County. There are allegations at this point, but we're not in the practice of just dismissing charges simply because someone has more serious charges somewhere else.

SCANNELL (voice-over): Mangione won't face the charges in Pennsylvania until after he is tried in New York.

(On camera): Karen Friedman Agnifilo said that Mangione appreciates the support. She called the federal charges a pile-on, and federal prosecutors today say that they expect the state case will move forward and go to trial first. However, at this point, it is unclear when Mangione will appear in state court and be arraigned on those 11 felony counts. Kara Scannell, CNN, New York.

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[02:24:56] BRUNHUBER: In France and beyond, many people are trying to process the astonishing mass rape trial that resulted in guilty verdicts across the board for dozens of accused, but also fears that justice wasn't served. The survivor at the center of the case has been called an inspiration for going public with the atrocities she endured, and forcing France to reckon with gender-based violence in a way it hasn't before. Melissa Bell has a look at the trial's takeaways.

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MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Gisele Pelicot was determined that the shame should not be hers, waving her anonymity and with it that of her rapists. Rapists we see you, shouted the crowd outside as inside, Dominique Pelicot received the maximum sentence of 20 years for the drugging and mass rape of his then wife Giselle over nearly a decade.

Outside the court there was anger that the 50 other men on trial alongside him had not received the maximum sentences sought by prosecutors. But as she left the court Gisele Pelicot made no comment on the verdicts.

GISELE PELICOT, SURVIVOR OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE (through translation): I have faith now in our capacity to carve out collectively a future where everyone, women and men, can live in harmony, in respect and mutual understanding.

BELL (voice-over): A stark contrast to the brutality of a trial that saw the violent rapes of an unconscious Gisele Pelicot shown in court day after day. Through the videos shot by her then husband of more than 50 years, Dominique Pelicot, unmasked by chance in 2020, when a guard caught him filming (inaudible) skirts in a supermarket.

(VIDEO PLAYING)

An incident that led police to the horrors that this unassuming retiree had on his phone and computer. Videos of more than 200 acts of aggravated rape against his wife, most, including other men.

It was not far from the couple's home in the sleepy town of Mazan in southern France that he met the men after recruiting them online. Dominique Pelicot's lawyer said her client will consider whether to appeal.

UNKNOWN (through translation): We are going to take advantage of the delay, which gives us 10 days to decide if we want to appeal this decision, she said.

As she left court, Gisele Pelicot was again celebrated for making the trial public and for having, in her own words, forced shame onto the perpetrators and where it belongs. Melissa Bell, CNN, Avignon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: Russia's president holds his annual press conference trying to send a message that all is well in the country, but this year some Russians may need more convincing. We'll explain coming up. Stay with us.

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[02:30:42]

KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR: We're just getting video of new Russian missile strikes on Ukraine's capital. You can see the damage on this city street as emergency personnel work to put out fires. Local officials reportedly say the early morning attack left at least two people injured and sparked fires across Kyiv.

Earlier, officials said Ukrainian air defenses tried to shoot down Russian missiles. We'll bring you more information as it comes in.

Russian President Vladimir Putin held his annual press conference on Thursday. It's a ritual in Russia aimed at portraying him as a competent leader, firmly in charge of the country.

But as Matthew Chance reports, that narrative has a tougher sell this time around.

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MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Vladimir Putin's audience virtually standing to attention as he swaggered into the auditorium. But the Kremlin's strongman is under intense pressure on his devastating war in Ukraine, for instance, and he's keen to promote Russia's recent territorial gains.

VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT: The situation is changing dramatically, as you well know. Movement is taking place along the entire front line, every day.

CHANCE: But every day, the cost of the war in blood and treasure is also rocketing, with an incoming President Trump calling for a rapid end to the conflict. The Russian leader said he was open to compromise on Ukraine and ready at any time for a Trump meeting.

PUTIN: First of all, I don't know when we will meet because he doesn't say anything about it. I haven't spoken to him at all for over 4 years.

CHANCE: But it would be, Putin added, from a position of Russian strength.

PUTIN: I believe Russia has become much stronger over the past 2 or 3 years. Why? Because we are becoming a truly sovereign country. We are no longer dependent on anyone.

CHANCE: But that strength seems to have disappeared recently in Syria, where a key Kremlin ally Bashar al Assad was overthrown. It was a geopolitical blow for an overstretched Russia, which maintained critical bases in Syria.

And now, Putin, who admits he hasn't even spoken to Assad since he escaped to Moscow earlier this month. He's forced to negotiate, if not plead, with the Syrian rebels. He once ruthlessly bombed.

PUTIN: The overwhelming majority (of the groups) tell us that they would be interested in us keeping our military bases in Syria. I don't know, we have to think about it.

CHANCE: This annual Putin extravaganza, highly choreographed and tightly controlled, is designed to trumpet achievements. But it is getting hard for the Kremlin amid a spate of setbacks to claim everything is going Russia's way.

Matthew Chance, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: U.S. President Joe Biden has carried out the highest level of deportations since 2014, according to a new report from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That's more than 270,000 immigrants deported in the last fiscal year, which is higher than the previous two years of Biden's presidency. Many of those who were deported crossed the U.S.-Mexican border illegally, the report shows. Authorities sent immigrants back to nearly 200 different countries amid record migration across the globe.

For the first time in three decades, a formal change to which foods the U.S. government considers healthy. The Food and Drug Administration is now putting limits on saturated fat, sodium and added sugars. So some foods that used to be considered healthy, like white bread and heavily sweetened cereal, will no longer qualify. Healthy foods must now contain a certain amount of fruits, vegetables, or low fat dairy to make the cut. Nuts, salmon, olive oil and can produce now qualify. The FDA is working on a new label to help people identify healthy options more easily.

Fertility treatment for rhinos. After the break, more on how scientists are working to save the northern white rhino from extinction.

Stay with us.

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[02:37:07]

BRUNHUBER: Efforts are being made to save the world's northern white rhino population from extinction, with fertility treatments. Reproductive technologies are being used to help the rare species, as there are now only two females remaining on the planet.

Susanne Holtze is a scientist for the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, and she's in Berlin. Thank you so much for joining us here.

So, as I understand it, at the beginning of this year, scientists announced they'd achieved the world's first IVF rhino pregnancy, successfully transferring a lab created rhino embryo into a surrogate mother. So that was with southern white rhinos, the only species that that isn't endangered.

Now, the question of whether it was successful is a little tricky to answer. I guess it's both yes and no, I suppose, right?

SUSANNE HOLTZE, SCIENTIST, LEIBNIZ INSTITUTE FOR ZOO & WILDLIFE RESEARCH: That's totally correct. So for once, southern white rhinos are also endangered. So they are rather abundant still. But they are also heavily threatened by poaching.

However, yes, we had a very sad incident that after a successful embryo transfer and, a fetus developing inside of this mother, the southern white rhino surrogate female died of a completely unrelated cause, which was a tragedy. And yeah, it created this picture of us holding a fetus of this, yeah, first successful embryo transfer.

BRUNHUBER: But -- and so it was successful and I understand there was, you know, a very high percentage that that had the rhino mother not died, it would have carried to term I understand.

So what does that mean for the northern white rhino? I mean, as I said in the beginning, there are only two left, two females, and I understand neither can conceive. So, what's the plan then?

HOLTZE: So, yes, it is a great hope for the northern white rhino that this worked actually, because we could demonstrate that the entire cycle to harvest oocytes from a two-ton animal, which is quite challenging, and to bring them to the lab and create embryos and then bring those back into a surrogate mother and have a successful pregnancy, this entire circle we have shown to work in the southern white rhino, and we are very confident now that it will also work with using northern white rhino embryos.

BRUNHUBER: So having a surrogate from a different species, that would be a world first. I mean, are there concerns because it's a different species that it might not take.

HOLTZE: They are actually considered a subspecies. It's debated. But right now, they are considered not to be so far apart. And actually there was in a zoo, once a hybrid. So we are very confident that the uterus and embryo communication will be successful.

BRUNHUBER: Now, I mean, there are challenges that that, you know, a civilian like myself might not even think of, like actually how to implant the eggs in such a big animal.

[02:40:03]

I mean, what's the biggest challenges here?

HOLTZE: The biggest challenge is, for once, to anesthetize the animal in a good way, that it's safe for both the people working with it and the animal itself and our colleagues have developed wonderful protocols for this. And the other is the pure sheer size of the animal to we have to cover a distance of 1-1/2 meters to bring the embryos where they should be in the uterus. BRUNHUBER: Gosh. Yeah, that would be a huge challenge. I imagine,

literally. So when were looking at the number of eggs, I suppose in the northern white rhino that you have access to, it must be limited because you only have these two individuals. So that means you only have a certain number of shots at this. Is that right?

HOLTZE: Yes. So we regularly every year, four times a year, harvest all sides of the last of the younger of these two remaining females, they actually mother and daughter. So we don't lose a lot of genetic diversity. And the mother is quite old. So we retired her from the program.

So we have actually only one donor, but we managed to create more than 30 embryos of good quality from her. So we are very confident and we are continuing to do this work. So we will continue to harvest more oocytes and actually, yeah, we discovered that her health is not compromised in any way.

BRUNHUBER: That's good news.

We only have about 30s left. But this is a hugely important question. The fact that we are living through this era where were seeing basically another mass extinction event caused by human activity, if this is successful, this IVF to help endangered species, what would it mean for other endangered species out there?

HOLTZE: I think, yeah, it's actually the last resort. We don't want to use all this technology to save species. But I think its becoming more and more necessary and it will be a great hope also for other endangered rhino species. For example, the Sumatran and the Javan rhino, which are also nearing the brink of extinction.

BRUNHUBER: Yeah. Well, listen, we wish you the best of luck with this program. We're all cheering for you.

Susanne Holtze, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it.

HOLTZE: Thank you.

BRUNHUBER: Well, at long last, Superman is returning to the big screen. Have a look.

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BRUNHUBER: Well, the trailer as you can see there, includes a free surprise super puppy Krypto, who comes to Superman's rescue in the snow.

Fans can expect to see the new faces of familiar characters Lois Lane and Lex Luthor as well. It's the first DC Universe movie directed by former marvel movie director James Gunn, but unfortunately, fans will need a super amount of patience before the film hits theaters, only in July. We should mention, DC Comics is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of CNN.

All right, that's it for right now. I'm Kim Brunhuber. I'll be back in about 15 minutes with more news.

"WORLD SPORT" is next.

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