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CNN International: White House Says It Has Secured Release Of Marc Fogel From Russia; Trump Claims U.S. Has "Authority" To Take Control Of Gaza; Trump Meets With Jordan's King Amid Furor Over Gaza Takeover Plan; Judge Expands Block On Trump Cuts To NIH Funding; Trump Imposes 25 Percent Tariffs On Steel And Aluminum Imports; Vice President Vance Addresses A.I. Regulation. Aired 3-4p ET

Aired February 11, 2025 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:39]

PAULA NEWTON, CNN HOST: Hello and welcome. I'm Paula Newton in New York. I want to thank you for joining me today on CNN NEWSROOM.

We want to get straight to the news.

After being held for three and a half years in Russia, American Marc Fogel is coming home, the White House announced today.

Now, Fogel is a teacher who was serving a 14-year sentence in Russia after being convicted on drug charges. His family had said he had cannabis for what they describe as severe spinal pain, and it wasn't until December, in fact, that the U.S. declared he was being wrongfully detained.

Now, the deal negotiated by Trump's special envoy to the Middle East was part of an exchange. But as of now, no further details have been provided.

Now, Fogel's release means there is now only one American left in Russia that the U.S. officially considers to be wrongfully detained.

Fred Pleitgen is in Moscow for us and has been following all of this.

Such an interesting exchange here, although we don't know the details. National security adviser Mike Waltz said this -- this is a sign even on other issues like Ukraine and Russia, in his words, it shows that were moving in the right direction. Can you try and sketch this out for us and how all of this happened?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. First of all, you're absolutely right. This is obviously great news for the Fogel family. Great news for all of those who supported Marc Fogel in these very difficult years that he was in Russian detention. Then, of course, also in a penal colony in Russia as well.

And it really was something, Paula, that seemed to be shaping up the entire day. So what we heard early this morning that a plane belonging to Steve Witkoff had landed here in Moscow. There was flight data that was available. It seemed that it had come directly from the United States and landed here in Moscow.

Obviously, everybody here wanted to know why that plane was on the ground and what was up with that. And the spokesman for the Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, was actually asked about that on a conference call with journalists earlier today. And he said that there was nothing to this, and he had nothing further to add. And it sort of faded away.

And it wasn't until late last night or late, late this night, this evening, that we then find out that the White House is indeed saying that Steve Witkoff plane was here, that he was here, and that they negotiated the release of Marc Fogel, who, of course, has been in Russian custody since 2021.

And you're absolutely right. The Trump administration trying to frame this as their sort of wider efforts to, you know, maybe improve relations with Russia, but certainly also to try and bring an end to the war in Ukraine.

I want to read you one sentence from that statement coming from the White House earlier today, which I think is actually key in all of this, and it says, quote, President Trump, Steve Witkoff and the president's advisors negotiated an exchange that serves as a show of good faith from the Russians and a sign that we are moving in the right direction to end the brutal and terrible war in Ukraine.

So a lot of things in that one sentence, as you already mentioned, the White House saying that this was an exchange, its unclear what exactly the Russians are getting in return for all for all of this, except that goodwill that the Trump administration seems to be talking about, but also that the Trump administration does apparently view this as part of their larger effort to also end the war in Ukraine. Of course, we've seen all of that pick up steam here over the past couple of days, with the Kremlin remaining coy, not confirming or denying whether or not President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin had spoken.

But certainly, the Russians are saying that contacts between the Trump administration and the administration of Russian President Vladimir Putin had been intensifying over the past couple of weeks, obviously trying to work towards some sort of settlement in Ukraine. The Russians, however, we do need to say, Paula, are continuing to say that that's going to be a lot more difficult than maybe the U.S. president thinks -- Paula.

NEWTON: Yeah, but certainly significant, this kind of contact just between the Trump administration and the Kremlin and the fact that a family, an American family has their loved one on the way back home.

Fred Pleitgen for us in Moscow, I want to thank you.

And we also want to show you now a picture of Marc Fogel, apparently, as he's making his way back, apparently celebrating there on the airplane with what may be a drink of beer and some food, and, of course, his loved ones awaiting his homecoming.

Now to more breaking news. The fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is on increasingly shaky ground right now. President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu telling Hamas that war in Gaza will start up again on Saturday unless Hamas resumes hostage exchanges.

[15:05:06]

Now, that message from Trump in a meeting with King Abdullah II of Jordan, where the president tripled, quadrupled down on his idea for the U.S. to, in his words, own Gaza and relocate Palestinians to other Arab nations for a rebuild. Now, he said, that model would make everyone, in his words, happy and thrilled, claiming Palestinians only want to live in Gaza because they, quote, don't know anything else. And he said the U.S. could just go in and take the land.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're not going to buy anything. We're going to have it and we're going to keep it, and we're going to make sure that there's going to be peace and there's not going to be any problem, and nobody's going to question it. And we're going to run it very properly. And eventually, we'll have economic development at a very large scale, maybe the largest scale on that site. And we'll have lots of good things built there, including hotels and office buildings and housing and other things. And we'll make that site into what it should be.

REPORTER: Mr. President, take it under what authority? It is sovereign territory.

TRUMP: Under the U.S. authority.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NEWTON: Now, international law may say otherwise about this. To go through all of this with us is Stephen Collinson. He's a CNN senior reporter.

The goings-on at the White House, I mean, obviously always startling, but even this seemed to take it to next level. What more did we hear from the king and the president?

STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Yeah, Paul.

I've seen a few tense meetings in the Oval Office when presidents meet foreign leaders. But this, I think, is one of the most awkward that I've ever seen. You could see that King Abdullah there was sitting there almost openly wishing this was end. He kept being asked by the press whether he was on board with this plan to move Palestinians to Jordan and Egypt, and he kept saying he couldn't really say, no, I'm not in public because he would be contradicting the president. So he kept talking about how Egypt and the Arab states were going to come up with some kind of plan.

Obviously, he's not in favor of this. Soon after he left the White House, he wrote on X that he had told the president that he was against the displacement of Palestinians and that his first priority was Jordan's security, which many people believe would be threatened by an influx of maybe a million Palestinians into that very volatile situation.

But once again, the president is, as you say, doubling and tripling down. He talked about how he knew a lot about real estate, how he would have Gaza, how he would cherish it. It's very difficult to see how he personally climbs down from this position because he keeps saying it publicly and making it even more vociferous that he's going to try to do this. So, it's very difficult to see how this ends, to tell you the truth.

NEWTON: Yeah. And King Jordan did come to the White House saying that he had something. In fact, he announced that Jordan would take in 2,000 sick Palestinian children. But beyond that, he was obviously noncommittal, given everything going on in the Middle East. I want you to listen now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KING ABDULLAH II, JORDAN: I think the point is, is how do we make this work in a way that is good for everybody? And obviously we have to look at the best interests of the United States, of the people in the region, especially to my people of Jordan. And we're going to have some interesting discussions today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NEWTON: You know, Stephen, as you know, the Trump administration and the national security adviser Mike Waltz said on the weekend, look, if you don't like Donald Trump's plan, what's your plan? He continually says that to Arab states. We might get -- the king hinted that we might get more details of that in the coming weeks.

COLLINSON: Yeah. And I think what you see around Trump is his major subordinates, his most senior officials trying to take this position and suggest that it could go somewhere. They argue that Trump and they have a point here, that Trump is the only person talking about what might come next in Gaza. The Israelis haven't put forward a plan. The Arab states really, through many decades, have not provided the kind of leadership and support that the ordinary Palestinian people might like seeing sometimes their cause as politically advantageous to them.

So the White House does want something done here. Perhaps there could be some initiative from the Arab states that, tries to reconstruct Gaza while the Palestinians are still there. Given that it's impossible for those states to allow the displacement of Palestinians.

What was very interesting was that the interaction there between the king and the president wasn't originally on the White House schedule. All those events were going to be closed press, but the pool got called into the Oval Office. So it was clear that the White House wanted to put public pressure on the king. And perhaps this is part of it. One thing that the president did say is that the United States

wouldn't withhold aid against Egypt and Jordan, having said the complete opposite the day before.

[15:10:03]

Now, Trump isn't exactly consistent. He doesn't often live up to deals he makes, so I'm not sure how much that is worth.

But one possible theory in Washington that people are talking about is, is he trying to get out of giving Egypt and Jordan aid as he has cut foreign aid in many other areas? And so thereby he's looking for an excuse to say, well, if you don't cooperate with my Palestinian plan, I'm going to cut aid. But all of this is very much up in the air. A lot of it seems to be existing only in Trump's head at this point, and we're not really seeing any concrete policy proposals to get this moving forward.

NEWTON: Yeah, no. And in fact, we could be closer to a war footing by Saturday, given the fact that the ceasefire deal may be in tatters.

Stephen Collinson, for us from Washington, grateful to have you with us now, as we were just discussing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in lockstep with President Trump.

And today, Netanyahu announced he ordered the IDF to gather forces inside and around Gaza, saying the operation will be completed in the near future. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER (through translator): The decision that passed unanimously in the cabinet is this, if Hamas does not return our hostages by Saturday noon, the ceasefire will end and the IDF will return to intense fighting until Hamas is completely defeated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NEWTON: Jeremy Diamond has our reporting on the fragile state of this ceasefire.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas certainly seems to be hanging on by a thread. The most precarious moment in its three week existence so far for a ceasefire that was supposed to last at least six weeks. The Israeli prime minister now issuing this ultimatum, saying if Hamas does not return our hostages by Saturday noon, quote, the ceasefire will end, saying that Israeli troops who have already begun to amass in greater numbers along the Gaza border, will return to the fight in Gaza until, quote, Hamas is completely defeated.

Now, the Israeli prime minister didn't go quite as far as President Trump when he made his ultimatum yesterday, saying that all of the hostages, meaning all 76 hostages still being held in Gaza, should be returned by Saturday. Otherwise, the ceasefire should be canceled.

Instead, an Israeli official telling me that Israel is demanding that all nine remaining living hostages, who were set to be released during phase one, that they be released in the coming days, indicating that the prime minister is perhaps trying to stay intentionally vague here, leaving himself a little bit of wiggle room to strike a deal by Saturday that would keep this ceasefire alive. Nonetheless, this is a serious threat to this agreement, especially since Hamas has said that it won't release any hostages this coming Saturday, accusing Israel of a series of ceasefire violations, including carrying out attacks against Palestinians in Gaza.

And indeed, today, the Palestinian ministry of health saying that 92 people have been killed by Israeli fire or shelling since the start of this ceasefire agreement.

Hamas, however, made clear that it is also leaving the door open to releasing hostages on Saturday, saying that it is making this threat with five days notice in order to give the mediators time to resolve this issue.

And indeed, that is what is happening right now. Egypt and Qatar, the two mediators who have been leading these negotiations between Israel and Hamas, working to try and resolve this dispute, whether or not they can get there in time for Saturday is another question altogether.

Jeremy Diamond, CNN, Tel Aviv.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NEWTON: Here to discuss this further is David Schenker. He is a senior fellow and director of the program on Arab politics at the Washington Institute, and former assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs at the State Department.

And good to have you with us.

As we continue to try and parse this news of the last few hours, I will note that King Abdullah, coming out of this meeting has strenuously said yet again, he cannot support this idea that Palestinians should be displaced. You know, Trump, though, continues to double down. He is now saying that, look, I don't even need to threaten to withhold aid to get Jordan to accept Palestinians from Gaza or Egypt from that matter.

How do you feel this will proceed next? Because it is clear that the king went to the White House with some kind of a plan. What do you think would be acceptable here? What would Middle Eastern allies even be willing to do to appease the president?

DAVID SCHENKER, SENIOR FELLOW & DIRECTOR, PROGRAM ON ARAB POLITICS AT THE WASHINGTON INSTITUTE: Well, listen, I mean, Trump is, as everyone knows, disruptive. In the last administration, he put out the vision for peace that failed miserably but resulted ultimately in the Abraham Accords. He threw out this proposal that has been widely rejected, and it's now in the Arab court.

[15:15:02]

He keeps on persisting in this proposal, coming up with even more ideas about development, et cetera. But let's remember as well, he said for years that Mexico would pay for the wall that he was going to build, and they never did.

And so, I think, you know, it really is up to these Arab states to come up with a coordinated proposal of what they're going to do in terms of security, in terms of strengthening the Palestinian Authority, in terms of rebuilding. And if they come up with something, then maybe Trump will relent.

NEWTON: And the fate, meantime, of Gazans and those hostages hangs in the balance, every hour that passes here. You know, Donald Trump says the IDF could, you know, in his words, let all hell break loose. Certainly that's the posture that Benjamin Netanyahu has them on now.

But, you know, I was speaking the other hours to Hussam Zaki from the Arab League, and he certainly was annoyed and disturbed by the fact that he thought the White House and Donald Trump had a very permissive attitude when it came to things like the behavior of the IDF in Gaza or now, perhaps even giving permission for Netanyahu to essentially annex Gaza.

Where do you think all of this will go, given at the end of the day, as I said, Gazans themselves and those hostages, their lives hang in the balance here?

SCHENKER: Yeah. It's no secret that Netanyahu has coalition problems and especially problems with moving ahead to the second phase of this ceasefire agreement. His coalition could fall apart. He might not get a budget. The government will fall. Then he will have some, perhaps legal challenges. And so, he obviously did not finish what he had pledged to do initially, which was to end Hamas. I think that is probably impossible.

But, you know, whether he moves forward with another stage of the military operation, I think there is a law of diminishing returns here that the international censure that Israel will accumulate by doing more against Hamas at this point and the fear or the concern that the remaining hostages will be killed? It may not be worth it. Notwithstanding the domestic political gains, most Israelis, maybe 70 percent, want to continue with the ceasefire and get back the remaining hostages.

NEWTON: Yeah, and hopefully, we will see some movement on that in the weekend and at least some of the hostages again being released.

David Schenker for us, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

SCHENKER: Thank you.

NEWTON: Now coming up for us, Trump versus the judiciary, the legal setbacks the president is facing as he attempts to steamroll the government with his own agenda.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:21:06]

NEWTON: A federal judge has expanded a block on the Trump administration's move to cut funding for the National Institutes of Health.

Now, doctors have warned budget cuts could severely endanger potentially even shutter research programs at universities that rely on federal funding to develop cures and treatments for life threatening illnesses. Now, the judge's ruling is also the latest in a string of legal losses for Trump's agenda on birthright citizenship, DOGE's scope of access, closing USAID, federal worker buyouts. That's not even an exhaustive list.

CNN justice correspondent Katelyn Polantz is with me now.

Katelyn, you have been trying to keep up with all of us. Tell us more about how you know what the stakes are really for the NIH and what the Trump administration may be arguing. And I want to point out this could affect every Americans health at this point.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Paula. There are a few lawsuits that I have seen move as fast and robustly in court as this NIH situation. It is the one example we can give that really shows exactly how everything is working, both with the Trump administrations implementations of their policies and how the courts and others are responding.

So in that case, the NIH announced on Friday it was going to basically deflate a lot of the money that the federal government was going to be giving to research universities, hospital systems to fund their overhead, researchers, people doing scientific and health research.

What happened is that the states run by Democratic attorneys, generals, governors went to court Monday morning. So yesterday morning and by midnight, basically the entire American medical community and all of academia had joined in and asked the courts to stop this Trump policy. By midnight, that's when the judge said, we're not going to allow these funding cuts to come into play.

So that was very fast moving. A lot of people, both politically and legally, rose up and said, we don't want this to happen, but it's just one of those examples where the Trump administration is curtailing funding and judges are stepping in and saying, hold on, let's keep the status quo until we look further at the laws here.

There are also several instances of the Trump administration cutting back federal workers, where judges are stopping that in its tracks, trying to shut down foreign aid funding.

But, Paula, health care really does seem to be a third rail right now. It's not just that NIH case that caused a quick response by the courts. There was also public health data that was removed from government websites.

And we just got a ruling a few hours ago from a judge in Washington, D.C., temporarily saying, you've got to put that back up for publicly on the public available websites, because taking down health care data could really hurt a lot of people. And the judge said specifically it could hurt everyday Americans and most acutely underprivileged Americans seeking health care.

And so that's how the courts are approaching these things. We do think the Justice Department and the Trump administration are going to keep fighting and keep trying to say he's the president. He can do what he wants.

NEWTON: Okay, Katelyn Polantz, we'll leave it there for now. Thank you so much. Appreciate you keeping up on all of that for us.

Now as President Trump escalates his trade war with yet another round of tariffs, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell offered a note of caution while on Capitol Hill today. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEROME POWELL, FEDERAL RESERVE CHAIR: The standard case for free trade and all that logically still makes sense. It didn't work that well when we have one very large country that doesn't really play by the rules.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NEWTON: But for Trump there will be no exceptions, no exemptions. That is the mantra. As he rolled out another 25 percent tariff on all steel and aluminum imports into the United States.

Now, Canada is America's largest source of both metals and has criticized the move as, quote, totally unjustified. Mexico is saying, quote, it simply doesn't make sense.

[15:25:03]

CNN's global economic analyst Rana Foroohar joins us now.

A lot to keep up with on this file as well. I want to start with the implications of these tariffs, specifically. We just described, you know, Canada and Mexico. Obviously, this will impact metals from them.

But these tariffs are actually indirectly aimed at China. Can you explain how?

RANA FOROOHAR, CNN GLOBAL ECONOMIC ANALYST: Yeah, absolutely. So China has for a couple of decades now become the world's largest producer of cheap steel. And for some time, the Trump administration, the first go around, the Biden administration has had a tariffs on certain kinds of cheap Chinese products to keep them from coming into the U.S. Okay, well, once you limit that, China will then go and dump some of those, products like steel and aluminum into other markets, like the E.U. You know, like Canada, like Mexico. These -- this steel is a global

market. So what these tariffs are attempting to do is sort of shut off all the potential doors that cheap steel could come in through, because you could get, say, the E.U. or China or Canada or Mexico pushing their own cheap products into the U.S.

The problem is, for starters, it's complicated. It takes a while for a process like this to work. And ideally it would be easier and better for relations with allies if you could have, say, a combined approach to Chinese mercantilism, if you could have had the U.S. and E.U., Canada, Mexico all say, you know what, cheap Chinese steel is a problem. Let's come together. Let's figure out how were going to deal with this as a bloc.

That's not what's happening. And so then you get allies, for example, like Canada saying, wait a minute, we're going to put on retaliatory tariffs. So that's where we are right now. And, it's messy and it's going to get messier.

NEWTON: And messy. And it will also be expensive, especially for American consumers. When we talk about, you know, the ex, the Trump administration is saying, look, there is a way to produce more of this stuff in the United States. We do have the capacity. We're not at full capacity.

How much does that make sense to you? And what does the business community saying about this? Because you and I both know if you leave it to just American production, steel and aluminum will get more expensive across the board.

FOROOHAR: So again, I'm going to -- I'm going to give you a multi- pronged answer. Let's look at what happened in the first Trump administration when tariffs on metals went up. You did see U.S. steel production going up by about a fifth.

Now, U.S. steel, any really American good is going to be more expensive than, say, what's produced in China. Because we have labor standards, we have environmental standards. U.S. steel is cleaner. It's also more expensive.

So these things go hand in hand. The fact that the administration is, I think, looking to get production up says something important about why do we need more American steel? Well, there's a sense that you need it for security reasons.

The administration is keen on making more ships in the U.S. It's keen on amping up the military industrial base. But to your point, in the short term, if you're going to close doors and try and protect the U.S. industry, you are going to get more expensive metals.

And in fact, it's interesting, since the tariffs were announced, you see a big rush to buy up cheaper steel while it's still available, which then has the effect of, you know, running -- running the market up just from the get go.

NEWTON: Right. FOROOHAR: It's very, very complicated. Yeah. Go ahead.

NEWTON: And I will say though, when businesses are looking at this, it's not complicated for them, right? They're looking at it and they're saying, yeah, we're going to stock up on our inventory right now before these tariffs come in. And as you're saying that again just distorts the market.

I want to talk about how Trump has also threatened that he would impose reciprocal tariffs this week on virtually every trading partner. What could that mean? And what toll would that take on American consumers?

FOROOHAR: You know, it could be very inflationary. You know, inflation itself is an interesting question right now. You're seeing actually inflation expectations go down a little bit only because investors are looking at this kind of back and forth, up and down announcements about tariffs one day, retracting them the next.

And they're saying, we don't like that uncertainty. We actually think America's economy may not be as strong as we think. We think the leadership is worrisome.

And so there's now a push pull between the potential inflationary impact of, say, a trade war and the sense that America is going to slow down and growth is going to slow, and we may go into a recession that's pulling expectations down. It is a very tricky business to predict where the markets are going to be, where inflation is going to be and what President Trump is going to do from one day to the next.

NEWTON: And in terms -- in terms of what he's going to do, what do you guess is the influence of the business community and Wall Street and the markets on all of this?

[15:30:07]

Because we did see markets stumble a little bit when he announced the 25 percent on Canada and Mexico. But, you know, I -- I basically had the theory that the markets didn't quite believe him at the time because or else I think they would have flipped out even more.

FOROOHAR: Paula, I got to say, I've been amazed we haven't seen a bigger correction. I really thought that given all the ups and downs that we would have seen one by now.

One thing I will say is when you're in global periods of uncertainty, as we are right now, not just because of Trump, but also China's got its own growth problems. Europe is fraying again, you know, there needs to be more cohesion there in order for there to be a real growth story, people tend to go with what they know. They tend to stay in the dollar. They tend to stay in U.S. stocks.

That said, you have seen in the last couple of days a little bit of a weakening of the dollar because there's just a sense that we don't know what's coming. So I guess the bottom line here is you can only be the boy that cries wolf so many times, you know, before there's a toll. And I fear that this president and his erratic decisions are taking a toll on investor confidence.

NEWTON: Yeah. As one person put it this week, not only the $87, they've now taken the carton of eggs and crushed them on the floor.

Again, to take the Trump administration at their word, they say this is a national security issue. Okay. Emmanuel Macron told CNN, our Richard Quest the other day that, look, we're going to go toe to toe with the United States if they try it on these tariffs.

How much does this really threaten a trade war between allies, never mind China?

FOROOHAR: Very, very possible. And I mean, you know, in the world of Trump two, is Europe an ally? I mean, Europeans are really, really worried about this administration. Yeah, technically, you know, we're all in NATO, but, boy, I would not be surprised to see Europe trying to play some hardball. I think it's feeling very threatened right now.

NEWTON: And, Rana Foroohar, thank you for your insights, and we'll leave it there for now. Thanks so much. Appreciate it.

Now, the impact of the U.S. aid funding freeze is already being felt thousands of miles from the United States.

CNN's Ivan Watson traveled to a refugee camp on the Thailand-Myanmar border, where funding cuts have forced the local hospital to send its doctors home. Now that's left tens of thousands of people without access to very basic health care.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is what happens when the world's biggest aid donor suddenly stops sending money. Families ordered to evacuate their sick loved ones from this hospital in the mountains of western Thailand. Days later, the hospital deserted its front gate, locked shut.

This is a refugee camp for tens of thousands of people who fled the civil war across the nearby border in neighboring Myanmar. The hospital here largely depended on U.S. government funding, which suddenly stopped. And now, nearly two weeks later, there isn't a single doctor on duty for this community of more than 30,000 people.

It's a 30-minute drive from this sprawling refugee camp to the nearest Thai hospital. The director here, shocked by the sudden closure of the camp hospital.

Has this been stressful these last two weeks for you? Yes.

DR. TAWATCHAI YINGTAWEESAK, DIRECTOR OF THA SONG YANG HOSPITAL: Yes, I think so, yeah. So dangerous.

WATSON: His facility has to suddenly absorb some of the refugee camp's patients. And that includes 32-year-old Mary.

Is this your first baby? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah.

WATSON: First, you're going to be a mama soon. You're going to be a mother.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah.

WATSON: Suffering high blood pressure, she was rushed to this maternity ward this morning and is now in labor, far from her family and home at the camp.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just want to ask the U.S. government why they have to stop helping the refugees.

WATSON: On January 20th, President Donald Trump ordered an immediate 90-day pause in all U.S. foreign aid. He declared the U.S. aid industry is not aligned with American interests and claims it serves to destabilize world peace.

Years Myanmar has been ripped apart by a brutal civil war. A military dictatorship that seized power in a coup in 2021 battling numerous insurgent groups.

The conflict has forced more than 3 million people to flee their homes and now aid organizations tell CNN they only have a month and a half of funding left to feed refugees along the Thai border with Myanmar, leaving smaller aid groups scrambling to fill the gap.

[15:35:06]

You're going into Myanmar.

KANCHANA THORNTON, DIRECTOR, BURMA CHILDREN MEDICAL FUND: This will go across the border. Yeah.

WATSON: Kanchana Thornton regularly takes food and infant formula and medicine across the border river to desperate people in the conflict zone. The U.S. funding cut made matters worse.

Why is it affecting you? You don't get money from Washington.

THORNTON: Well, patients come to us and asking us for help.

WATSON: Because they're not getting it from the original.

THORNTON: Yeah, because they're not getting support that they should from the NGO that got the funding cut.

WATSON: Everywhere we go in this poverty-stricken border region, we hear about basic services disrupted and aid workers being laid off.

This clinic treats nearly 500 patients a day. It receives nearly 20 percent of its funding from the U.S. government. Washington has been sending money here for at least 20 years. But now all of that has stopped.

Uncertainty now felt by Rebecca and her nine year old daughter, Rosella.

Yeah. Can you show me your favorite pictures?

The residents of the refugee camp who had to move out of the hospital when it shut down last month, even though Rosella was born with a bone condition, she needs oxygen around the clock.

My daughter needs the hospital to be open, Rebecca says. And so do I, because I'm pregnant.

The cut in U.S. funding means this pregnant mother no longer has access to a doctor, and she doesn't know how much longer her daughter's oxygen will last.

Ivan Watson, CNN, on the Thailand-Myanmar border.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NEWTON: And we'll be right back with more news in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:40:09]

NEWTON: Vice President J.D. Vance is in Paris for the artificial intelligence action summit. Now, the vice president made it very clear he was there to talk about A.I. opportunity, not A.I. safety. And he warned against stifling free speech and allowing access to all forms of opinions, taking aim at the E.U.'s digital services act and its regulations.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, U.S.VICE PRESIDENT: Many of our most productive tech companies are forced to deal with the E.U.'s digital services act and the massive regulations it created about taking down content and policing so-called misinformation. And, of course, we want to ensure the Internet is a safe place. But it is one thing to prevent a predator from preying on a child on the Internet and it is something quite different to prevent a grown man or woman from accessing an opinion that the government thinks is misinformation.

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NEWTON: Now, the vice president says the U.S. believes that overzealous rulemaking could kill the artificial intelligence industry just as its about to take off.

CNN's Melissa Bell is in Paris with more.

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MELISSA BELL, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The idea of this summit here in Paris was very much to kick start France as a center of A.I., but also to make up for what the French president described as some of the lost time for the European Union when it came to the field of artificial intelligence. It's been an opportunity to have leaders of big tech companies from all over the world gather with world leaders to talk about the future of A.I.

We've had a speech from the American vice president calling for less regulation, criticizing the European Union for its efforts to legislate and regulate when it comes to artificial intelligence, but more still, to regulate, also, when it came to privacy laws. He said that many Americans, smaller companies, had entirely chosen to ignore European consumers because of GDPR rules.

And having criticized the European Union in its approach, he went on to say that the United States would continue to champion its big tech.

The idea then for Europeans had been to say that they, too can stand up in this industry where they feel they've lost time so far, not just the French president announcing 109 billion euro package that will involve private money from foreign and French companies investing here in France. But there was also an announcement at European level about further funds that Ursula von der Leyen, the commission president, believes, could help foster innovation here on the continent as well.

URSULA VON DER LEYEN, EUROPEAN COMMISSION PRESIDENT: Today, I can announce that with our Invest A.I. initiative, we can top up by 50 billion euros. So thereby, we aim to mobilize a total of 200 billion euros for A.I. investment in Europe. We will have a focus on industrial and mission critical applications. It will be the largest public-private partnership in the world for the development of trustworthy A.I.

BELL: The hopes of organizers had also been the signing of a series of non-binding commitments on the future of A.I., and the need for it to be built in an inclusive and sustainable manner for the whole world. Those non-binding commitments signed by most people here, although not crucially by the United States.

Melissa Bell, CNN, Paris.

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NEWTON: Now, the battle for the future of one of the most prominent A.I. companies is getting personal. Elon Musk is part of an investor group trying to buy OpenAI, the parent company of the popular ChatGPT service. Now, Musk is leading a group of investors who have made a bid to buy OpenAI for nearly $100 billion. But Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, says it's not for sale.

While at the A.I. summit in Paris, Altman told Bloomberg TV he believes Musk is trying to slow down his company. He also said he does not think Musk is a happy person.

Now, in a post on X, which is owned by Musk, Altman rejected the bid for OpenAI, saying, quote, no thank you, but we will buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.

Musk fired back with a simple reply, saying, Scam Altman. Okay. Still to come for us, CNN travel to Greenland to ask the locals

what they think about President Trump's plan to buy their land. We'll have their message for Donald Trump after the break.

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[15:47:42]

NEWTON: We're not for sale. Greenland's message for U.S. President Donald Trump is abundantly clear. And despite that, Trump's interest in taking control of the massive island is expected to be the focus of a U.S. Senate committee hearing on Wednesday.

Now, officially, the purpose is to, quote, examine the strategic significance of Greenland to the American economy and national security.

Our Donie O'Sullivan traveled to Greenland to gauge the locals on what they think about the president's plans.

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QUPANUK OLSEN, GREENLAND ELECTION CANDIDATE: I really want this statue gone.

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Why?

OLSEN: Because why should he be up there? Why isn't it a Greenlander up there?

Trump wants to buy my country, Greenland.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): This is Qupanuk Olsen.

OLSEN: Today, Miko and I are having whale skin.

O'SULLIVAN: She's known as Greenland's biggest influencer, and she's running in the island's upcoming elections. She's a native Greenlander, and for her, this statue of an 18th century missionary is a daily reminder of Denmark's control of her country.

O'SULLIVAN: So you would like to be independent of Denmark?

OLSEN: Yes.

O'SULLIVAN: But that doesn't mean you want to be part of the USA?

OLSEN: No, I don't want to become a part of the USA. I definitely don't.

O'SULLIVAN: You don't want to be an American?

OLSEN: No.

O'SULLIVAN: Why not?

OLSEN: Why should I? Why should we just be taken by another colonizer?

O'SULLIVAN: Native Greenlanders or Inuits make up almost 90 percent of Greenland's population.

O'SULLIVAN: Is all this interest in Greenland because of Trump, is it a good thing or is it a bad thing?

OLSEN: In my opinion, it's a good thing because it's speeding up our independence process, so I see it as a good thing.

O'SULLIVAN: When the Nazis took over Denmark during World War II, the United States stepped in to protect Greenland.

O'SULLIVAN: Now, the U.S. military has had a presence here on Greenland for decades, but in the capital, one of the very few signs of the United States is this, the U.S. consulate, which was reopened by President Trump in his first term in 2020.

TOM DANS, FORMER U.S. ARCTIC COMMISSIONER: Americans died for this country. In my own family, my grandfather watched his shipmates die.

O'SULLIVAN: Another sign of the U.S. here is Tom Dans, who was appointed to the U.S. Arctic Research Commission during Trump's first presidency.

When Trump first brought up Greenland, people treated it like it was a joke. People thought, that's crazy. But you're saying it's not so crazy.

DANS: It's not crazy at all. Greenland, due to its geographic position, is of kind of the front door for North America.

O'SULLIVAN: The U.S. is jostling with Russia and others for Arctic dominance. Military bases here are prime real estate for satellite and missile detection systems.

O'SULLIVAN: So this is Danish Navy.

OLSEN: This is the Danish Navy, yeah.

O'SULLIVAN: Greenland currently relies on Denmark for security and financial support.

O'SULLIVAN: Do you think Greenland can survive without this, without the support of Denmark?

OLSEN: We will definitely need an agreement with another country, either with -- or still continue the agreement with Denmark, with military, or go with U.S. or Canada.

O'SULLIVAN: Climate change is opening up new shipping routes in the Arctic that the U.S. want to control.

O'SULLIVAN: The Greenlanders, you've spoken to, excited about a close relationship with the U.S.?

DANS: Absolutely. I'm -- you know, I'm talking with businessmen, investors, entrepreneurs. Tremendous things are happening.

O'SULLIVAN: And another appeal of Greenland for Trump is its many natural resources.

DANS: Fishing, tourism, mining, security investments, logistics. The hard thing is deciding where to start first.

O'SULLIVAN: Tom Dans does not have a role in the current administration, but he did campaign for Trump in the last election, along with Greenlander Jorgen Boassen.

DANS: He's been known as Trump's son here.

JORGEN BOASSEN, GREENLANDIC TRUMP SUPPORTER: Trump's son here.

DANS: So papa.

BOASSEN: Papa.

O'SULLIVAN: I mean, maybe you could be.

BOASSEN: Yes.

O'SULLIVAN: Jorgen has made multiple trips to the U.S. in recent months, even campaigning for Trump in Pennsylvania.

O'SULLIVAN: Do you want Greenland to be part of the United States?

BOASSEN: Not of 51 states, but best and closest ally with everything, with defense, mining, oil exploration, and trade, and everything.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, we are here in Greenland with Don. Jr.

O'SULLIVAN: In January, another sign of the United States here. Donald Trump Jr. arriving on the plane dubbed Trump Force One. It's all a sign here for some that there's a lot more to come.

OLSEN: The feeling when I saw the plane was kind of excitement, but also, like, should I be nervous now? And, like, the realizations of Trump's words are no longer just words. Now they have become the reality.

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O'SULLIVAN (on camera): And Greenlanders will go to the polls here next month in an election where Donald Trump and the United States is expected to loom large. So much so that just last week, the parliament here fast tracked new legislation, a law banning foreign political donations here that is very much seen as something that is in response to the renewed and intense interest from the United States.

Back to you.

NEWTON: Our thanks. Donie O'Sullivan there, who always gets the best assignments.

And we'll be right back with more news in a moment.

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[15:55:48]

NEWTON: All right. In case, you haven't heard, there's a new body of water south of the U.S. It's called the Gulf of America. You see it there.

Now, the gulf itself obviously isn't anything new but the name -- yes, the name is at least on Google Maps. Now, to make things even more confusing, users in Mexico, they will still see Gulf of Mexico on their maps. Google Maps officially made the switch after Donald Trump signed an executive order to honor what he called American greatness. Google says its policy is to apply name changes when they're updated on official government websites, and said one name, one place, another name on another place.

All right. I want to thank everyone for joining me. I'm Paula Newton.

Stand by, though, "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS" is next.