Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Trump Gives Hamas "Last Warning" On Releasing Hostages; White House Confirms U.S. Directly Negotiating With Hamas; Human Rights Groups Call On Israel To Allow Aid Back Into Gaza; Tesla Shares Down More Than 40 Percent From Their Dec 2024 Peak; FDA Commissioner Pick Plans "Expert Coalition" To Review Abortion Pill. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired March 06, 2025 - 14:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:31:15]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: President Trump is giving Hamas a, quote, "last warning," calling on the militant group to release all hostages in Gaza immediately or there will be, quote, "hell to pay later."

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: That's a threat coming shortly after the White House confirmed the U.S. is directly negotiating with the terrorist group.

Trump's special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, telling reporters those talks have been recent.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE WITKOFF, SPECIAL ENVOY TO THE MIDDLE EAST: Hamas has not been forthright with us, and it's time for them to be forthright with us.

I wouldn't test President Trump. It's fairly clear he was saying I've had enough.

Like there's a lot of mistreatment. There's a lot of conversation among these hostages about the deprivation that they went through, about murders that they saw.

And I think that the president listened to it, absorbed it, and said this is -- it's unacceptable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: CNN's Jeremy Diamond is with us now from Tel Aviv.

Jeremy, what more do we know about these negotiations? Israel, obviously not reacting well to this news.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No. And really, we haven't heard very much from the Israeli government.

But there is no indication that they are happy that the U.S. government is speaking directly to Hamas for the first time in decades since the United States designated Hamas as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997.

What's interesting is that you have these kind of two dueling strategies, perhaps, or complementary, depending on how you look at it, from the Trump administration.

On the one hand, Adam Boehler, the president's hostage envoy, speaking directly with Hamas, seemingly trying to cut a deal to get more hostages out. And in particular, we would assume, the five American hostages who still remain in Gaza.

And on the other hand, you have President Trump once again making a very dramatic threat ultimatum to Hamas, warning them that if they do not release all of the hostages immediately, then they will have all hell to pay.

Now, the president has made these threats in the past, and there's no indication so far that these are actually effective in terms of moving the needle with Hamas.

The president this time, though, made clear that he's also going to work to arm Israel even further so that they can, quote, "finish the job in Gaza."

But of course, we know that Israel fought Hamas for 15 months in Gaza, pummeled the Gaza Strip with millions of pounds of explosives. And yet, as we saw during these hostage releases week after week, Hamas very much still standing.

So it's not exactly clear where we go from here. What is clear, though, is that this current ceasefire very much seems to be hanging on by a thread.

SANCHEZ: Jeremy, human rights groups are attempting to call on Israel to resume allowing aid into Gaza after Israel paused those shipments in order to essentially put pressure on Hamas over phase two of the ceasefire agreement.

What's the latest there?

DIAMOND: Yes. Since Sunday, Israel has not allowed any aid, any food, any goods to get into the Gaza Strip. This is a total blockade of any kind of humanitarian aid getting into Gaza.

And we know that it comes as hundreds of thousands of people inside the Gaza Strip have become reliant on humanitarian aid. And over the last six weeks of the ceasefire, they really have begun to -- to rebuild.

The markets have come back to life. People have had something that they could count on in terms of food coming in the door. And now, of course, a huge amount of fear about what happens when those very limited stockpiles of aid and food that are in Gaza actually run down.

The World Food Program has indicated that it could be in less than two weeks that bakeries and soup kitchens could be forced to shut down -- Brianna? KEILAR: All right. Jeremy Diamond, thank you for the report.

We have CNN global affairs analyst, Kim Dozier, with us now in studio.

[14:35:03]

So, Kim, the U.S., in direct negotiations with Hamas. How unprecedented is that.

KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Compared to the last Trump administration that opened negotiations with the Taliban, I can't really say I'm surprised.

This is a transactional president. His various national security officials have been saying repeatedly since he took office, we don't necessarily care what these various leaders or officials are guilty of, accused of, et cetera, we just need to do business.

So opening the talks, another good thing about talking directly is that there's no middleman.

And so if you are about to let Netanyahu have his way with Gaza again, this way, you can tell the various constituents in the Arab world and back here in the states, we tried, we even talked to them directly. They couldn't be negotiated with, so what can you do?

SANCHEZ: Conversely, you would think that Netanyahu would be thrilled to have the backing of the United States to do as he wishes in Gaza. As Trump said, it's over for you, Hamas. If -- if this happens.

Yet the Israelis are cautious about what may come of direct talks between the U.S. and Hamas.

DOZIER: Yes. Look, they don't like the green light that might give Hamas more legitimacy or perhaps lead to Hamas members, more of them getting some sort of shelter outside of Gaza to fight another day.

But the fact of the matter is Trump has said he's rearming Israel. He's not criticizing, none of his administration is criticizing this cut off of aid.

I mean, hospitals are running out of the fuel that they need to run generators for surgeries, et cetera. It's getting dire in only a few days.

There's no padding in terms of the supplies in Gaza to keep people going. So it looks mostly win-win for Israel.

And I spoke to one regional official involved in the talks, and he says Hamas has gone nowhere. So far. So it's -- the Arab world is looking at this grimly.

The Trump administration rejected their idea that they proposed earlier this week for rebuilding Gaza. So the Gaza Riviera plan is still on tap. And now it looks like Trump, after meeting with those hostage families including, I believe, the family of the Israeli-American Edan Alexander, is saying we're going to let Israel go back to war in Gaza.

KEILAR: Does Hamas feel the pressure? I mean, do they you see Trump here trying to drive both sides to the bargaining table?

Barak Ravid, who initially broke the story about this, was saying he saw some parallels to how you see Trump treating Ukraine, trying to drive it to the bargaining table.

DOZIER: Yes.

KEILAR: Does -- does Hamas feel that pressure?

DOZIER: It depends where in the pecking order you are. If you're one of the leaders in Hamas who might be able to get exit to somewhere in the Gulf and live on, you probably are more open to negotiation, maybe.

But the rank and file of Hamas know that there's no escape for them. They're probably just willing to fight, especially since this expulsion of all the Palestinians of Gaza plan is still on the White House plans for the future of the Middle East.

KEILAR: Still on the whiteboard.

All right, Kim Dozier, thank you so much. We appreciate it.

[14:38:40]

Ahead, is Wall Street souring on Elon Musk? How Tesla's share price and sales have dropped since he began helping the president take a chainsaw to the federal government.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:43:23]

SANCHEZ: Is Elon Musk losing his luster on Wall Street? Tesla shares are down 40 percent from their peak through Wednesday's close and have now lost more than a third of their value since Donald Trump took office and since Musk rose to power in the new administration.

CNN reporter, Matt Egan, joins us now.

So, Matt, tell us about this steep decline in Tesla stock.

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Well, Boris, after the election, this stock was going straight up, kind of like a SpaceX rocket. There was just so much excitement on Wall Street about what Elon Musk's role in helping to elect President Trump would do to his business empire and Tesla's bottom line.

But look, all of that excitement has really vanished. Tesla's down another 6 percent today, down 35 percent on the year. And as you can see on that chart, almost all of the post-election gains have now been erased.

Now, analysts say this is happening for a few different reasons. Part of it is the fact that the overall market has pulled back. There's also concern about some of the competition that Tesla faces, especially from automakers in China.

The other part, though, does appear to be specific to Elon Musk, right? There is a sense of surprise on Wall Street at just how high profile and, frankly, polarizing Elon Musk has been in this administration.

Instead of a behind-the-scenes adviser, he's been front and center, leading DOGE and all of the efforts to cut federal spending and to lay off federal workers.

And so there is a concern that this is going to do damage to the Tesla brand, right? That he's become too polarizing.

[14:45:03]

Again, we have seen some hints of that. S&P Global Mobility found that at the end of last year, there was a decline in blue states for Tesla in terms of their market share and repeat buyers. That's between the end of 2023 and the end of 2024.

Now, I should note that in red states, the number is pretty much held steady. More recently, though, there has been a significant drop in Tesla's sales in Europe, where Musk has endorsed hard-right candidates.

We saw that in January. Tesla's sales plunged year over year, despite the fact that, overall in Europe, E.V. sales were significantly higher.

Now, Tesla bulls, they still believe in Elon Musk, and they're still betting that ultimately this company is going to benefit from Musk's close relationship to Trump, particularly around regulation and his efforts to get self-driving robotaxis approved.

But for now, Boris, clearly, this Tesla boom has been slammed shut right now and the stock is really in a pretty significant slump.

SANCHEZ: So, Matt, what has all that done for the net worth of the globes richest man?

EGAN: Yes, Boris, it's taken a really very significant hit. So far this year, Elon Musk's net worth has declined by about $97 billion. That doesn't even count today's stock drop.

And this makes sense because not only is Elon Musk the biggest shareholder in Tesla. Tesla accounts for a significant chunk of his wealth.

But look, obviously, people are going to feel too terribly for Elon Musk because he is still the richest person in the world. And by a long shot. Look at that. His net worth is still up, is actually more than $100 billion on the next closest person.

But his lead in the rankings of the richest people in the world has gotten a bit slimmer in recent days and weeks as we've seen Tesla's share price fall further and further -- Boris?

SANCHEZ: Matt Egan, thanks so much for breaking that down for us.

Still to come, calls to pardon the man convicted for the murder of George Floyd are gaining support on social media, including from who we just were talking about, Elon Musk. We'll discuss how George Floyd's brother is reacting.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:51:49]

KEILAR: In today's confirmation hearing, President Trump's pick for FDA commissioner said he plans to build an expert coalition to review the abortion pill, Mifepristone. Dr. Martin Makary says, if confirmed, he will follow the law when reviewing data on the pill.

CNN health reporter, Jacqueline Howard, is with us now.

Jacqueline, what exactly would this expert coalition entail?

JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH REPORTER: Brianna, it's still not exactly clear. But what we do know is that this coalition will be looking at data that's collected under what's called the FDAs REMS Program. REMS stands for Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy Program.

Under this program, additional regulations could possibly be placed or even introduced on the use of Mifepristone. So abortion rights advocates say that they are concerned about this.

But what we heard from the nominee for FDA commissioner, Dr. Makary, he said that this is something that he wants to just look at, evaluate. He wants to look at the data that's collected under the REMS Program, looking at Mifepristone exactly.

And here's what he had to say about this coalition, in his own words, earlier today in the confirmation hearing. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. MARTIN MAKARY, FDA COMMISSIONER NOMINEE: I have no preconceived plans on Mifepristone policy except to take a solid, hard look at the data and to meet with the professional career scientists who have reviewed the data at the FDA.

And to build an expert coalition to review the ongoing data, which is required to be collected as a part of the REMS Program, the Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy.

It is pursuant to the REMS. And so if we're going to collect data, I believe we should look at it. (END VIDEO CLIP)

HOWARD: And, Brianna, again, in response, we are hearing from some groups that argue that Mifepristone is safe. They -- some say it shouldn't even be a REMS drug.

And some experts at the Center for Reproductive Rights say that they are concerned that Dr. Makary could make it harder to access abortion pills, possibly like banning telehealth services or rescinding approval for Mifepristone altogether. So these are the conversations that are happening around this.

But I will say Mifepristone, it's one of two medications that are part of what's called a medication abortion. It's been approved, 20 years ago. That's when it was FDA approved.

And medication abortions account for almost two-thirds, 63 percent, of all abortions here in the United States. So Mifepristone is a medication that we know a lot about that is commonly used for medication abortion.

So, Brianna, I'm sure if confirmed as FDA commissioner, we could hear more from Dr. Makary on this coalition that he -- he mentioned earlier today -- Brianna?

KEILAR: Is it safe?

HOWARD: We have data that shows, when you look at the safety of Mifepristone compared with other commonly prescribed drugs like penicillin and Viagra, some of those other drugs have higher death rates associated with them than Mifepristone, you see on the screen here, compared with penicillin and Viagra.

[14:55:07]

So, Brianna, this is a drug that we do have a lot of data on. And that's why I said, again, abortion rights advocates are taking a close look, and they're keeping their ears to speakers as they hear Dr. Makary talk about this coalition as part of his plans, if confirmed.

KEILAR: All right. Waiting for the Viagra coalition, I guess.

Jacqueline Howard, thank you so much for that.

HOWARD: Yes.

KEILAR: We're following new developments on this so-called trade war with Canada and Mexico. Stay with CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)