Return to Transcripts main page

Early Start with Rahel Solomon

Zelenskyy: New Russian Attacks Hit Ukrainian Hospital; Russia Agrees To Pause Ukraine Energy Attacks; Astronauts Butch Wilmore, Suni Williams Return To Earth; Judge Blocks USAID Dismantling, Says Musk Exceeded Authority; FBI, police Investigate "Targeted Attack" On Tesla Facility; Prosecutors: Turkey Detains Istanbul's Mayor; Nvidia Unveils New Details Of Next-Generation A.I. Chips. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired March 19, 2025 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:34]

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, and welcome to our viewers, joining us from the U.S. and all around the world.

I'm Rahel Solomon. It is Wednesday, March 19th, 5:00 a.m. here in New York.

And straight ahead on EARLY START.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Putin agreeing to a ceasefire on energy and infrastructure targets in Ukraine.

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): We are skeptical when it comes to trusting the Russians. There is no trust to Putin.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And splashdown, Crew-9 back on Earth.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just a beautiful landing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Butch, Suni, on behalf of SpaceX, welcome home.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This was a targeted attack against a Tesla facility. We've increased our police presence, in particular at Tesla locations.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We want to let you know it's a federal crime. We will come after you. We will find you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(MUSIC)

SOLOMON: And we begin this hour with that two-hour phone call between President Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. It has apparently done little to stop the fighting in Ukraine. New images posted online by Ukraine's president claim to show a hospital that took a direct hit from a Russian drone. Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying that nighttime attacks by Russia are destroying Ukraine's energy sector and civilian infrastructure.

The attack follows an agreement by Moscow to pause attacks on energy targets in Ukraine if Ukraine does the same. Now, it's not the 30-day cease fire that some were hoping for. But President Trump says that he thinks that that will come soon.

Ukraine's president says that while he supports the pause on energy attacks, he believes that Russia is not ready for a full ceasefire.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENSKYY: We support all steps aimed at ending the war, but in order to support them, we need to understand what exactly we support. When President Trump has time, he is a busy man, but when he has time, he can call me anytime. He has my phone number. We are ready to talk through further steps with pleasure.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOLOMON: More now from CNN's Jeff Zeleny at the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZELENY: President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreeing for the first time to the beginning of a ceasefire in Ukraine after a two-hour phone call on Tuesday here at the White House. Putin agreeing to a ceasefire on energy and infrastructure targets in Ukraine. Of course, one step short of a full on ceasefire that the Trump administration had been pushing.

Now, the administration and Russian officials are saying that they will meet in the Middle East to discuss a broader framework of a ceasefire, even as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is raising questions about Russia's true commitment to a ceasefire. There is no question President Trump has so much on the line here. He is not only welcomed Putin back into the world community after he's been ostracized for some three years or so, but also talking about other business deals and reducing sanctions to come.

But the ceasefire agreement, even though limited in nature on energy and infrastructure agreements, certainly is something that cannot be dismissed out of hand. Both Ukraine and Russia are eager to have their targets off limits, if you will, even as this broader ceasefire. The bigger question remains an open one.

Jeff Zeleny, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SOLOMON: William Taylor served as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 2006 to 2009, and he spoke with CNN about the phone call between President Trump and Putin and explained what he thinks is motivating them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM TAYLOR, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADO TO UKRAINE: There's another party to this conversation, obviously, and that's the Ukrainian president. And the Ukrainian president has the ability to say no. The American president has the ability is -- indeed has stated that he would like to be a winner on this. He would like to come out ahead on this. He wants to be seen to have driven a good bargain for in the first instance, the United States security, but other security as well, including European and including Ukrainian.

The secretary of state has said he wants to see a Ukraine that is independent and sovereign and European and secure. And so the Ukrainians will have a lot to say about those demands by President Putin.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And splashdown. Crew-9 back on Earth.

(CHEERING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOLOMON: A picture perfect landing for astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore this morning. They are adjusting to life back on Earth after spending 286 days on the International Space Station, far longer than the original eight day mission.

[05:05:08]

CNN's Ed Lavandera has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The SpaceX capsule carrying NASA astronaut Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore made a dramatic splashdown in the Gulf waters off the coast of the Florida panhandle Tuesday evening, complete with a dolphin show swimming around the capsule as the crews began the process of lifting that capsule out of the ocean waters. This capped a -- the end of a long saga for these NASA astronauts, who had launched into outer space back in June of last summer, nine months ago on the Boeing Starliner spacecraft.

But because of technical problems with that spacecraft. NASA deemed that it was not safe enough for those astronauts to use to return. That kicked off a lot of planning and preparation for NASA officials to find another way to get those astronauts back home.

Those astronauts are now back on Earth. They are going through the process of returning and coming back here to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, where they will reunite with their family members, and they will also begin the more intensive process of re-acclimating to the earths gravity, going through a series of medical tests being put in pools to regain strength and that sort of thing. That's a process that could take days, if not weeks. So that is the primary focus that NASA officials are focused on right now for these astronauts, as they come back here to Houston.

But this is also a crew that has been caught up in a saga, a political saga as President Trump and Elon Musk have claimed that these astronauts were stranded and abandoned in outer space by the Biden administration.

The two astronauts have denied that this is the case. NASA officials were asked about this Tuesday after the safe landing of these astronauts in their splashdown. They kind of sidestepped the question, saying that since the very beginning of all of this, they have really focused on trying to find the safest way possible to get these astronauts back home safely.

Ed Lavandera, CNN at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SOLOMON: A federal judge has indefinitely blocked the dismantling of USAID. He said that Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency overstepped their authority and actions to shut down USAID likely violated the Constitution. The judge also saying that Musk was performing the duties of leading an agency without being confirmed by the Senate.

The Trump administration says that it plans to appeal the ruling.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Democrats always talk about, oh, our Constitution has been violated. The one thing they never talk about is where did these billions of dollars go? It sounds so nice. USAID, isn't that beautiful? But it's a whole big scam.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOLOMON: The judge also saying the DOGE cannot terminate any more USAID contracts or grants. It also can't fire any more employees or put them on leave.

The FBI is investigating an attack on Tesla cars as a possible act of terrorism. Police in Las Vegas say that surveillance video shows a person shooting at the electric vehicles and lighting two of them on fire with Molotov cocktails.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk claims that his company's cars are being targeted due to his efforts to slash the federal government.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELON MUSK, TESLA CEO: Tesla is a peaceful company. We've never done anything harmful. I've never done anything harmful. I've only done productive things. So I think we just have a deranged -- there's some kind of mental illness thing going on here because this doesn't make any sense. (END VIDEO CLIP)

SOLOMON: Police departments across the U.S. have been investigating a wave of attacks on Tesla's showrooms, charging stations and vehicles.

CNN's Josh Campbell has more details now on the latest act of vandalism targeting Tesla.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: The FBI and local police are investigating yet another act of vandalism at a Tesla facility, this time in Las Vegas.

Police responded to 911 calls early Tuesday morning, reporting gunshots and flames at the Tesla repair center. Upon arrival, they found multiple cars set on fire.

ASST. SHERIFF DORI KOREN, LAS VEGAS METROPOLITAN POLICE DEPARTMENT: This was a targeted attack against the Tesla facility. We believe the suspect approached the business wearing all black clothing, and he used what appeared to be Molotov cocktails and a firearm to conduct his attack.

CAMPBELL: Authorities say the word "resist" was spray painted on the building.

KOREN: We do not believe that there's any further threat to the general public. However, as a precaution, like we do on many of these types of incidents, we've increased our police presence, in particular at Tesla locations.

CAMPBELL: While police say they believe this was an isolated incident, it does follow multiple other acts of vandalism at Tesla dealers, including places like Kansas City, Missouri, the Chicago area, and southern California.

Tesla founder Elon Musk took to X, calling this an act of terrorism. Now, authorities say multiple personnel from the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force are conducting an investigation in order to identify the suspect and a motive.

SPENCER EVANS, SPECIAL AGENT, FBI LAS VEGAS: Violent acts like this are unacceptable, regardless of where they occur.

[05:10:02]

And specifically to those who might think that something like this is justifiable or potentially even admirable, we want to let you know it's a federal crime. We will come after you, we will find you and prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.

CAMPBELL: Now, one aspect of Tesla products that could assist the FBI in this investigation is the fact that many of the company's vehicles are equipped with video camera technology that could be used to identify the suspect. Authorities say they are currently working with Tesla in order to help exploit any footage that may have been captured of the attack.

Josh Campbell, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SOLOMON: And straight ahead, police in riot gear gather outside the mayor of Istanbul's home. The opposition figure seen as a challenger to Turkey's president, is now detained by authorities.

Plus, incredible scenes in New Mexico as a dust storm blankets a major highway, forcing drivers to pull over.

And later, Frontier Airlines shooting its shot -- shooting its shot in the battle over baggage fees. We'll check out what the carrier is offering to summer travelers.

Well be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:15:33]

SOLOMON: Welcome back.

Authorities in Turkey have detained the mayor of Istanbul. That's according to prosecutors and state media. The mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, is seen as a key political rival to Turkey's President Erdogan. This comes just days before the main opposition party is scheduled to hold a primary election, where he was expected to be chosen as its presidential candidate. A member of the main opposition party sharing these photos showing a line of police in riot gear standing outside the mayor's home. Authorities have also issued detention orders for around 100 other people.

Let's get to CNN's Paula Hancocks, who is following these developments from Abu Dhabi.

Paula, what's the latest? What are you hearing?

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Rahel, we're hearing critics denouncing this detention as political. Imamoglu has been detained for questioning as part of a corruption and terror-related investigation, according to TRT, state-run media.

We did hear from Imamoglu himself. He posted a video of himself just before he was arrested, saying that the police were outside and saying, I will not back down. We are up against huge bullying.

Now, as you say, this is just days before the main opposition party, the CHP, was to hold this primary election where he was expected to be elected as the presidential candidate. He could then go on to be part of that election to become president before 2028. That's when the election is expected. And he was expected to run against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has ruled Turkey for over two decades now.

Now, one of the leaders of the main opposition party called this a coup attempt against our next president. We are seeing some protests outside the police headquarters in Istanbul. We're hearing from authorities, though, that they have banned any demonstrations for the next few days in downtown Istanbul, saying that they've closed some of the metro stops, they've closed some of the roads. They say they are doing that, quote, to maintain public order.

Now we're also hearing from the Internet watchdog NetBlocks, saying that access to many social media sites, X, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok have been restricted -- Rahel.

SOLOMON: Paula Hancocks, live for us there in Abu Dhabi -- Paula, thank you.

More than a dozen people were killed near the southern city of Khan Younis overnight, according to Gaza officials. Most of them had been sheltering in tents and right now, massive anti-government protests are underway near Jerusalem. That's after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shattered a nearly two month long ceasefire agreement with Hamas and launched airstrikes on Gaza Tuesday.

CNN's Nic Robertson is live for us from Jerusalem, where some of those protests are taking place.

Nic, give us a sense of what things are like behind you and what you've been able to hear from protesters so far.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yeah, we're very close to the entrance of the Knesset, which the protesters aren't being allowed to get any closer to. This is a place that they've become used to protesting at. And the protests are a background drumbeat, if you like to daily life here.

But what has happened, I suppose, over the past 24 hours or so since the Israeli government re-launched, in effect, a full scale attack again on Gaza, is its motivated more people to join the protests. And I was speaking to a lady in the crowd here who was telling me she was here for many reasons, worried about the democracy in the country, worried about the hostages who are still in Gaza.

But in part, she was motivated to come out because the prime minister, the IDF, have gone on the offensive. The prime minister last night saying that any further negotiations with Hamas will be sort of through the full force of the war.

I talked to another young protester here, a young a young man who told me his motivation to come here today was for the hostages, but also because the government wants to remove the intelligence chief, the domestic intelligence chief.

So there are different motivations. But the picture that is emerging today is a number of protests focusing on in Jerusalem, the one here that's gathering outside the Knesset. There's a huge march that's been marching for about three hours now, coming into Jerusalem. There's a protest expected close to the prime ministers residence again today. And that's again a place that protesters have gathered. What's happening in Gaza is giving not just some Israelis pause for

concern, but the international community, not just the withholding of electricity, not just the withholding of aid, but the start of these military -- heavy military operations again, no ground incursions so far, but a real fear of that and a fear heightened today because the Israeli military, the IDF, have dropped fliers in the northern part of Gaza around a small town called Beit Hanoun that's been so heavily damaged in the war so far, where people had returned to during this sort of ceasefire that had been in place.

And the warning is, evacuate your homes again. So it's almost a reset to pre-January 19th to pre the ceasefire where the IDF appears again intent of clearing people out of the north of Gaza.

So these protests are recognition that there is a groundswell and some polling here indicates that as many as 7 in 10 Israelis just right now want the hostages back, an end to the war. And a significant number also are blaming the prime minister and half of the people polled in this independent polling in the country said the prime minister should step down immediately. And this is a manifestation of that that were witnessing here right now.

SOLOMON: Yeah, some of those protesters, according to our reporting, they're saying you have a single mandate. Bring them home. Seven out of ten, quite remarkable.

Nic Robertson in Jerusalem -- Nic, thank you.

All right. Well, it has been almost two weeks since the U.S. college student disappeared from a beach in the Dominican Republic. Still ahead, we'll bring you the latest on the case.

But first, a big announcement from Nvidia. The tech company says that its new chips will allow apps to think more like humans. What we're learning about this next generation of A.I. chips when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:26:37]

SOLOMON: Welcome back.

Nvidia is revealing new details about its next artificial intelligence chip platform and its latest A.I. chips. The tech company says that the platform will help apps reason and act on a user's behalf to capabilities that would take A.I. further into real life.

CNN's Anna Stewart reports from London.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNA STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Earlier this year, Nvidia was the most valuable company in the world amidst an A.I. boom. Its chips have been pivotal to data centers, fueling the likes of Microsoft, Amazon and Google. Nvidia's share price, though, lost steam in recent weeks, sparked in part by the release of DeepSeek's latest reasoning model R1, created in China at a fraction of the cost of comparable models.

And really, it raised questions as to whether expensive hardware like Nvidia's is really necessary. Well, in Nvidia's annual conference, the CEO was keen to emphasize that the next waves of A.I. like agentic or reasoning A.I. and the A.I. to power robots will open new market opportunities for the company.

JENSEN HUANG, CEO, NVIDIA: The computation requirement, the scaling law of A.I. is more resilient and in fact, hyper accelerated. The amount of computation we need at this point, as a result of a gigantic A.I. as a result of reasoning, is easily 100 times more than we thought we needed this time last year.

STEWART: Jensen Huang also announced the Blackwell ultra for the second half of this year. It's an upgraded version of Nvidia's existing A.I. chip, which has been in really high demand and plenty more to come.

He teased ahead to even more advanced chips in the pipeline next year. A chip called Vera Rubin, named after the astronomer, followed by the Ultra Rubin for 2027. Plenty for investors to mull over.

Anna Stewart, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SOLOMON: Frontier Airlines could be taking trolling to a whole new level. It's offering one carry on bag, one checked bag, seat assignments and flight changes for free this summer, but you'll have to book your trip by Monday.

Now, the move is a swipe at Southwest Airlines, who announced last week that it was ending its policy of two free checked bags. This is good. This is someone give whoever did this. And frontiers social media department or marketing department erased because this is very clever.

Frontier says that it could make the deal permanent depending on the response from customers. A little throwback there.

You could soon own a piece of heavy metal music history, thanks to rock band Iron Maiden. A Boeing plane used by the band on their 2016 world tour is being dismantled by German company Aviation Tag. They specialize in turning retired planes into collector's items. They plan to create unique tags from the fuselage.

The keychain size tags will cost about $70 each. No word yet on how many will ultimately be made, but the plane is big enough to make about 100,000 tags.

Later, the U.S. Federal Reserve wraps up a two day meeting, and when they do, we will learn whether there will be any change in interest rates.

Coming up, we'll talk with prominent economist Mark Zandi about what to expect. And baseball fans are fired up in Japan as Shohei Ohtani and the L.A.

Dodgers take on the Chicago Cubs in the Tokyo Series. We'll hear from fans excited to welcome their homegrown hero.