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Marc Fogel Back in U.S. After Being Detained in Russia; Impact of USAID Cuts on Thai Refugee Camp. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired February 12, 2025 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:30:00]
NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Is Trump seeking a quick deal? And if he can't get that, his interest will significantly wane. And, more importantly, where does Moscow fit into all of this?
They are winning on the battlefield, they are slowly edging forward, a huge loss to their own forces, but still seeing progress, certainly. And so ultimately, many are asking whether Russia, given that state of progress, is any mood to make a peace deal right now at all. So much to be addressed in the coming months, and many questions too about exactly where in his heart Donald Trump lies when it comes to Ukraine's security.
Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHRISTINA MACFARLANE, CNN ANCHOR: Well, still to come, more on the release of a U.S. teacher who was detained in Russia, what we know about the Trump administration's push to bring him home.
And the painful reality of the Trump administration's cuts to humanitarian aid. We'll show the impact on a refugee camp in Thailand.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MACFARLANE: Hi, welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Christina Macfarlane. If you're just joining us, here are some of the top stories we're following today.
Marc Fogel, a U.S. teacher who was wrongfully detained in Russia for more than three years, is back in the U.S. His first stop was at the White House last night where President Trump announced that another detained American is set to be released today.
Steve Bannon, a former chief strategist for President Trump, pleaded guilty Tuesday to a border wall fraud case. The online fundraiser was a scheme that asked people to donate money to help build a wall along the southern U.S. border. Under the plea agreement, Bannon will not serve any time in prison.
And lava is once again exploding out of the Kilauea volcano in the big island of Hawaii, shooting about 100 meters into the air. This is one of the world's most active volcanoes and it's been erupting on and off for nearly two months. It is inside Hawaii's Volcanoes National Park and no homes are threatened by the lava.
Marc Fogel's mother had personally approached President Trump about helping free her son from a Russian labor camp. She describes her joy when she learned he was finally coming home.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MALPHINE FOGEL, MARC FOGEL'S MOTHER: I said, where are you? He said, I'm in the Moscow airport. I'm waiting for a plane. He said, I should be in Washington tonight. I'm coming home, he said.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What was your reaction then?
MALPHINE FOGEL: Oh, well, you know what? As I said before, I just got dizzy. I thought, did I get this right? I really, I really, I couldn't process it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MACFARLANE: Fogel's mother came up in discussions at the White House as well. Here's what the president had to say about Fogel's family.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He's got a great mother. And when I saw the mother at a rally, she said, would you, if you win, will you get my son out? And I promised, she's 95 years old.
And I said, we'll get him out. And we got him out pretty quickly.
MARC FOGEL, U.S. TEACHER FORMERLY DETAINED IN RUSSIA: She told me that exact words.
TRUMP: She made quite an impression.
MARC FOGEL: And you also did. And I'm in awe of what you've done and your team.
TRUMP: It's great to have you back. You're going to have a great life.
MARC FOGEL: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you speak directly to President Putin about --?
TRUMP: Well, I don't want to say that. I just want to say that I appreciate very much what they did in letting Marc go home.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MACFARLANE: Well, CNN's Jeff Zeleny has more on the details of what we know about Marc Fogel's release.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JEFF ZELENY, CNN U.S. CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: An extraordinary scene at the White House on Tuesday evening as President Donald Trump welcoming an American home from Russia. Mark Fogel, a schoolteacher from Pennsylvania, 63 years old. He'd been held as a prisoner for more than three years on a drug charge.
This has been a release long in the making. It became clear throughout the day on a Tuesday, the president's envoy, Steve Witkoff, flew to Moscow and brought home Marc Fogel. When he arrived at the White House, he had this to say to the president.
MARC FOGEL: I am not a hero in this at all. And President Trump is a hero. These men that came from the diplomatic service are heroes.
The senators and representatives that passed legislation in my honor to get me home are the heroes. I am in awe of what they all did.
ZELENY: On a snow-covered, frigid February evening, signs also of a thaw in relations between the United States and Russia. The president said this was a sign of goodwill.
Certainly, the diplomatic conversation are going on between the U.S. and Russia all over Ukraine. The vice president is scheduled to meet with the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday.
Now the president did not say what this would mean in the long term. However, it's clear that channels have been opened up.
This is the first time a top U.S. official, as far as we know, has visited Moscow to bring home a prisoner since the Ukrainian war began. Now this is something that clearly has been in the works for a very long time. Marc Fogel's mother spoke with Donald Trump last summer at that campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, moments before the assassination attempt on his life.
[04:10:03]
You could see the gratitude on his face Tuesday night at the White House. Certainly a major moment. The president said one more prisoner to be released on Wednesday.
Jeff Zeleny, CNN. The White House.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MACFARLANE: Now, the inspector general of USAID was fired on Tuesday, one day after releasing a report criticizing efforts to dismantle the agency. That's according to a source familiar with the matter. Paul Martin was told via e-mail that his position was terminated effective immediately.
USAID oversees the distribution of foreign aid from the United States. The Trump administration has moved swiftly to make cuts to the agency, freeze funding and put staff on leave. The firing came as President Trump and Elon Musk attacked the agency whilst offering no evidence for their accusations. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The USAID is really corrupt. I'll tell you, it's corrupt. It's incompetent and it's really corrupt.
ELON MUSK, SPECIAL GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEE: Overall, if you say what was the bang for the buck, I would say it was not very good. And there was far too much of what USAID was doing was influencing elections in ways that I think were dubious and do not stand the light of day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MACFARLANE: The sweeping changes ordered by Musk and the president are having a real impact on people across the world. Ivan Watson takes us inside a refugee camp in Thailand.
(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.
WATSON: 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.
WATSON (voice-over): 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.
WATSON: Has this been stressful these last two weeks for you?
DR. TAWATCHAI YINGTAWEESAK, DIRECTOR OF THA SONG YANG HOSPITAL: Yes, yes, I think so. So dangerous.
WATSON (voice-over): His facility has to suddenly absorb some of the refugee camp's patients, and that includes 32-year-old Mary.
WATSON: Is this your first baby?
MARY: Yes.
WATSON: You're going to be a mama soon. You're going to be a mother.
MARY: Yes.
WATSON (voice-over): 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.
MARY (through translator): I just want to ask the U.S. government why they have to stop helping the refugees? WATSON (voice-over): On January 20, President Donald Trump ordered an immediate 90-day pause in all U.S. foreign aid. He declared the USAID industry is not aligned with American interests and claims it serves to destabilize world peace.
For 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.
WATSON: You're going into Myanmar.
KANCHANA THORNTON, DIRECTOR, BURMA CHILDREN MEDICAL FUND: This will go across the border, yes.
WATSON (voice-over): Kanchana Thornton regularly takes food, infant formula, and medicine across the border river to desperate people in the conflict zone. The U.S. funding cut made matters worse.
WATSON: 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: Yes, because they're not getting support that they should from the NGO that got the funding cut.
WATSON (voice-over): Everywhere we go in this poverty-stricken border region, we hear about basic services disrupted and aid workers being laid off.
WATSON: 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.
WATSON (voice-over): Uncertainty now felt by Rebecca and her 9-year- old daughter, Rosella.
WATSON: Yes, can you show me your favorite pictures?
[04:15:00]
WATSON (voice-over): They're 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.
WATSON: The pause in U.S. funding has already become a matter of life and death here. The International Rescue Committee tells CNN that an elderly woman who couldn't get access to supplemental oxygen died after the hospital in her refugee camp closed last month.
Life has never been easy for refugees in this porous border region. And if the world's largest aid donor truly does pull out, I think it's fair to say life will get much, much harder.
Ivan Watson, CNN, on the Thailand-Myanmar border.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MACFARLANE: Now when it comes to the future of artificial intelligence, U.S. President -- Vice President J.D. Vance had a blunt message for the AI Action Summit in Paris. Opportunity is good, regulations are bad. More on that just ahead.
Plus, why it might be harder to find sweet deals on chocolate this Valentine's Day.
[04:20:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MACFARLANE: Now, as the United States and China compete for AI dominance, the U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance used his appearance at the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris to argue not for AI safety, but for AI opportunity.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
J.D. VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: We believe that excessive regulation of the AI sector could kill a transformative industry just as it's taking off, and we'll make every effort to encourage pro-growth AI policies, and I'd like to see that deregulatory flavor making its way into a lot of the conversations this conference.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MACFARLANE: The summit's host, French President Emmanuel Macron, said he was in favor of cutting some of the red tape, but also warned of the need for a trustworthy AI.
Well, Valentine's Day is right around the corner, but the cost of chocolate might put a bit of taste in your mouth this year. A Wells Fargo report finds chocolate prices are up to 20 percent higher than they were last year.
That's because the price of cocoa has more than doubled, hitting a record high in December. It's largely due to production setbacks caused by bad weather in West Africa, which produces about 70 percent of the world's cocoa. Didn't know that.
But the Hershey's company says its customers won't see higher prices because it buys its cocoa almost a year in advance. So, no excuses there.
Now, the bane of billions of smartphone users, the Duolingo owl is dead, apparently. Or so it seems. The language learning app said on social media that its mascot, Duo, passed away. It didn't reveal the make-believe owl's cause of death but noted that Duo had many enemies.
He's notorious for repeatedly reminding users to complete their lessons every day. Not enough of a reason to kill him off, though, I would say. Last year, Duolingo said it had more than 34 million daily active users.
Unfortunately, though, this all seems to be just a bit of social media fun. The owl still appears in the app, ready to buzz your phone, so you'll do those lessons. Ah, playing with our hearts.
Now, pageantry, performance, thousands of pups, and only one ultimate prize winner will introduce you to Monty the Great, no, the Giant Schnauzer, next.
[04:25:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MACFARLANE: Well, who remembers that from the Super Bowl? It's all the stars from Kendrick Lamar and SZA. The rapper just announced the dates for the European leg of his tour and tickets go on sale this Friday.
The announcement comes on the heels of Lamar's Super Bowl halftime show on Sunday. He performed several of his hits along with SZA as a special guest. The grand national tour kicks off on April 19th in Minneapolis. The European leg of the tour -- if you're interested -- starts on July 2nd in Cologne, Germany. I'm still thinking about those bell bottoms -- anyway.
Prosecutors are building the case against three suspects accused of breaking into NFL player Joe Burrow's home. Investigators say the suspects stole about $300,000 worth of jewelry and other luxury items. The three Chilean men were arrested during a traffic stop last month.
When investigators searched their phones, they found selfies of the men posing with the stolen goods. Authorities believe the burglary is part of a wave of crime tourism where international burglary teams steal from homes in affluent areas.
Now, let me introduce you to Ramses. He weighs nearly 200 pounds or about 90 kilograms and may be the tallest dog in the world. The Great Danes owner recently had him measured to submit his height to the Guinness Book of World Records but apparently did not share the findings. The current record holder, another Great Dane, stands at more than 3 foot 5. That's a large bed as well for a large dog.
There's already one dog who has received his crown. Look at this. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I choose the giant Schnauzer.
(CHEERING)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He did it. Three years and he finally wins Best in Show. What an incredible moment.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MACFARLANE: Monty, a giant Schnauzer from New Jersey won the prestigious Best in Show award at this year's Westminster Kennel Club dog show in New York. Having triumphed in the working group for the last three years, Monty finally became the first giant Schnauzer to claim the top prize. The runner-up was a whippet named Bourbon. Around 3,000 dogs from around the world compete in the annual contest. Isn't he cute? I didn't even know giant Schnauzers were a thing but now I kind of want one.
Thank you for joining us here on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Christina Macfarlane. Stay tuned for CNN "THIS MORNING" after this quick break.
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