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Funeral of Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas to be Held Today; Ukraine, U.S. Agree on Natural Resources Deal; Public Outcry Escalates After Threat of Government Job Cuts; Pope Francis Resting After Peaceful Night in Hospital. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired February 26, 2025 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thousands of Israelis have come out along the highway, along the roads, leading to the final resting place for Kfir, Ariel and Shiri Bibas.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I hear that he's coming on Friday. He would like to sign it together with me, and I understand that's a big deal.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just feel very thankful for who we had flying our plane.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They knew there was something not right. And then the pilot did come on and say that there was a plane on the runway.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Live from London, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Max Foster and Christina Macfarlane.

CHRISTINA MACFARLANE, CNN ANCHOR: Hi there, and a warm welcome to our viewers joining us from all around the world. I'm Christina Macfarlane. It's Wednesday, February 26th, 9 a.m. here in London, where we are learning that Israel and Hamas have reached an agreement to exchange the bodies of four Israeli hostages for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, possibly as early as Wednesday evening. That's according to an Israeli source. And it indicates that the Gaza ceasefire deal remains intact for now.

This comes as crowds in Israel gather for the funeral of Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, who were taken hostage by Hamas on October 7th. The IDF says they were brutally murdered in Gaza in the first weeks of the war. Their bodies were returned to Israel last week. Paula Hancocks has the details on the latest Israeli-Hamas agreement.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Israel was supposed to have released 620 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails on Saturday, including 23 children within that, in return for those six live hostages that we saw released from Gaza. However, Israel said that it was delaying that release because it did not appreciate the humiliating ceremonies, it says, that it saw with the hostage releases. It is also saying Hamas had carried out repeated violations by making videos and public displays that demean the dignity of those hostages.

Now, what we did see on Saturday, we saw some of those hostages being brought up onto a stage, which we had seen in previous weeks. And some of them being made to speak to the crowds, the crowds of militants and also of bystanders. There was also a propaganda video that Hamas released, which showed two of the as yet unreleased Israeli hostages watching these proceedings from a vehicle.

So Israel said that because of these violations of the ceasefire deal, they would not release the Palestinian prisoners. Now, Hamas in turn said that that was a violation and said there would be no discussions on phase two of this hostage ceasefire deal until they were released. So it shows the fragility of this ceasefire deal.

As of this point, we understand that there will be an exchange of these prisoners and the bodies of four Israeli hostages, that according to an Israeli source familiar with the matter. But looking forward, we still do not have details of any negotiations on phase two. Phase one is supposed to end this weekend.

So the temporary ceasefire technically ends this weekend. There were supposed to have been indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel since early February. That has not happened.

We're also hearing from an Israeli source familiar with the matter that the Israeli government would like to extend the first phase as long as possible to try and get more hostages back. It is unclear and unlikely that Hamas would agree to that. But it just shows how fragile this entire three-phase hostage deal is.

Paula Hancocks, CNN, Abu Dhabi.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MACFARLANE: The funeral procession for Hamas hostages Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, Ariel and Kfir, has now concluded. Crowds of mourners line the route to pay their final respects. Their funeral will be held this hour near the kibbutz they were abducted from during Hamas' October 7th attacks.

Our Jeremy Diamond is in Israel with the latest.

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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: And what you see arriving behind me is indeed that funeral procession for Kfir, Ariel and Shiri Bibas who were killed in Hamas captivity.

[04:05:00] You can see hundreds of Israelis at this very junction, but thousands of Israelis have been lining this entire procession as we now see these vans coming through carrying the bodies of Kfir, Ariel and Shiri Bibas, their mother.

They were all three taken hostage from kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7th. And for 16 months, so many who we've spoken to here have held out hope that perhaps they would return alive. But instead, this is a very somber moment where so many Israelis are now devastated as they learned last week that they indeed returned dead from Hamas captivity.

Hamas has claimed that they were killed in an Israeli airstrike. The Israeli government says they were killed by Hamas captors with their bare hands. But right now, just very somber, very emotional scenes as we watch as people bow their heads in grief and in solidarity with the Bibas family.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MACFARLANE: On Tuesday, the Israeli parliament building, the Knesset, was lit up in orange in memory of Shiri Bibas and her two boys.

Now just a week ago, Donald Trump was calling Volodymyr Zelenskyy a dictator. Now the U.S. President is preparing to welcome his Ukrainian counterpart to the White House to sign a deal promising to help rebuild Ukraine once the war with Russia ends. For its part, the U.S. will get access to a share of Ukraine's valuable rare earth minerals. Ukraine rejected an earlier version of it, a source telling CNN Kyiv was expecting to provide everything while the U.S. had no security obligation to Ukraine. But a Ukrainian official says everything unacceptable has now been taken out of the text of the deal and it spells out more clearly U.S. contributions to Ukraine's peace and security. Here's President Trump.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I hear that he's coming on Friday. Certainly it's OK with me if he'd like to. And he would like to sign it together with me and I understand that's a big deal, very big deal.

And I think the American people, even if you look at polling, they're very happy because, you know, Biden was throwing money around like it's cotton candy. And it's a very big deal. It could be a trillion dollar deal. It could be whatever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACFARLANE: More now from CNN's chief international security correspondent, Nick Paton Walsh in Kyiv.

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NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Increasingly positive signs that a deal will be signed between the United States and Ukraine in the coming days. A Ukrainian official saying that in their perception, the United States and Ukraine have agreed terms for a deal over Ukraine's rare earth minerals and natural resources being used to pay back what the Trump administration says is debt over aid from the United States to Ukraine to help it defend itself after Russia's invasion.

Now, the deal apparently may end up being signed later this week in Washington. The official is saying that the White House has proposed a meeting on Friday between President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and President Donald Trump. When asked about this, Trump said that he'd heard Zelenskyy was coming to see him on Friday, said he was OK with that and also suggested that Zelenskyy would like to sign the deal during that meeting.

That's not a full-throated embrace of the deal by Trump or an official announcement from the White House that indeed they've agreed terms. But it's certainly significant progress after a week of intense acrimony between Trump and Zelenskyy in which Trump called Zelenskyy a dictator. Zelenskyy suggested that Trump was living in a disinformation circle and their relationship really appeared to be in free fall.

In terms of the deal's content, well, we understand from the Ukrainian official that some of the thornier items have been removed. Indeed, we were told on Monday that it wouldn't have security guarantees in it that the Ukrainians had sought as the Americans had resisted. It appears, according to the Ukrainian official we spoke to today, that some language pertaining to Ukrainian security may have been put back in.

But this does seem to be a framework agreement, talks about Ukrainian reconstruction, but may leave some of the uglier details for further discussions.

But what's really going to be important is whether or not Trump does indeed meet Zelenskyy on Friday and how they get along, because it's their personal acrimony that's hung over bids by European leaders to try and get Trump to embrace the idea of Ukraine support more fully and indeed to try and assist any European role in peacekeeping forces here.

It's been a breakneck fortnight of the United States getting closer to Russia in separate negotiations of acrimony between Ukraine and U.S. presidents, and now it seems potentially this deal looking in better shape than it has for quite some time. If the two presidents meet on Friday and do heal that relationship, that will be an enormous relief for Ukrainians here who are desperately concerned that their main financial and military backer may be significantly less invested.

[04:10:00]

And potentially relief, too, for Europeans who've been in something of a scramble since the role in the United States, not only in Ukraine's security, but that of Europe as a whole, has been in doubt over the last fortnight.

Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, Kyiv, Ukraine. (END VIDEOTAPE)

MACFARLANE: Well, ahead of his visit to Washington on Thursday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced increases in the U.K.'s defense spending from 2.3 percent of the country's GDP to 2.5 percent by 2027, then up to 2.6 percent the following year. Starmer says it will be the biggest sustained increase in defense spending since the end of the Cold War. To help pay for it, Britain will cut international aid spending by 40 percent, a move charity groups have quickly condemned.

Starmer says he agrees with President Trump that Europe's need to spend more on defense.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEIR STARMER, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: I think in our heart of hearts, we've all known that this decision has been coming for three years, since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine. The last few weeks have accelerated my thinking on when we needed to make this announcement. Yes, it's true, President Trump thinks we should do more, and I agree with him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACFARLANE: Salma Abdelaziz is here following developments. Salma, it does appear that Donald Trump seems to be getting quite a lot of what he wanted, if not in totality. Let's just discuss the deal first on the table with Ukraine.

There's still a lot to be ironed out, but the one crucial thing it doesn't include, which, of course, is what President Zelenskyy has wanted all along, is security guarantees.

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So, at this point, it seems like it's a framework. We don't have the details of the deal yet. You have to remember that, potentially, we could see President Zelenskyy in D.C. by the end of this week, so you can expect that, potentially, the uglier, the thornier parts of this deal could be hammered out over the course of the next few days, or, in fact, in D.C.

What we know so far is that President Zelenskyy and Ukrainian officials are saying the thornier parts of the deal have been removed. All of this started when President Trump wanted to exact a $500 billion deal over Ukraine's rare-earth minerals. President Zelenskyy was quick to point out that that's not even how much money the U.S. has spent on Ukrainian defense, so that seems to have been brought down, whatever that financial toll is. We know that it's going to be a joint exploration between Ukraine and the United States over these rare-earth minerals.

There'll be a fund created. The profit that goes into that fund could also back reconstruction in Ukraine. Again, these are vague outlines of this agreement, but you pointed out the key thing, which is the security guarantees. That's why President Zelenskyy originally said no to these deals on rare-earth minerals. He said that Ukraine needed some guarantee of protection from the United States. He has said over and over again that he does not believe the Ukrainian military can continue to stand up to Russia without U.S. support.

So expect on Friday, if this expected meeting does go ahead in the White House between President Trump and President Zelenskyy, the first thing to watch out for, of course, is their personal relationship. It's been a rollercoaster couple of weeks. Trump has called Zelenskyy a dictator. He's repeated Russian disinformation. He's blamed Ukraine for the war.

Does he back down on that? Does he show warmth, friendliness towards President Zelenskyy, or does he continue towards that animosity?

MACFARLANE: And how important is it going to be for him to restore relations, especially in light of what the efforts we've seen from Europeans this week? Obviously, Emmanuel Macron earlier in the week, Keir Starmer is headed there tomorrow already, upping spending on defense. It's imperative, isn't it, that they get back on terms?

ABDELAZIZ: This is about alignment. This is about where the U.S. sits on the global stage, because for the past few days, it has been in alignment with Russia. I mean, it was just Monday at the U.N. Security Council that the U.S. was voting in alignment with Russia on Ukraine rather than its European partners. So it's going to be a signal from President Trump as to whether or not he is willing to remain onside with Ukrainians. And it's also an indication of these negotiations that we're expecting, right.

President Trump wants this war over. He wants negotiations to take place. There's already been direct talks between the Americans and the Russians. To what extent is President Trump going to take value in what Ukraine's demands are at the negotiating table? Last week, it did not look like very much. Maybe by the end of this week, President Zelenskyy will feel more considered, more part of that conversation.

MACFARLANE: We will see. Salma, thank you.

Now in the coming hours, President Trump is set to hold his first official Cabinet meeting with Elon Musk at his side.

It comes amid confusion over Musk's role and authority and his demand to government employees to justify their jobs or face termination. An administration official tells CNN some Cabinet members are frustrated with the move since many were just recently confirmed.

[04:15:00]

Donald Trump is now offering a path to U.S. citizenship, but only for those who can pay a very high price. On Tuesday, he announced the US will sell a gold card to wealthy foreigners, giving them the right to live and work in the United States in exchange for $5 million.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick says potential buyers would be vetted to make sure they are, quote, wonderful world class global citizens.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would a Russian oligarch be eligible for a gold card?

TRUMP: Yes, possibly. Hey, I know some Russian oligarchs that are very nice people. It's possible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACFARLANE: The administration says the gold card would replace the government's immigrant investor visa program and will go on sale in about two weeks.

Meantime, the fallout continues from that mass e-mail sent by Elon Musk and the Office of Personal Management threatening the jobs of federal employees. When asked to clarify the matter, here's what President Trump had to say.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you clarify, hopefully once and for all, what your expectations are with this e-mail to federal employees? What are you going to use that information for? And do you see it as voluntary, like OPM has said, or mandatory?

TRUMP: Well, it's somewhat voluntary, but it's also if you don't answer, I guess you get fired.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACFARLANE: Meanwhile, the public outcry against the move is growing louder. CNN's Tom Foreman has the details on the backlash.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you OK with the chaos being created?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you OK?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Government employees are going to be let go. And that's just the reality of it.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Shouted down at town halls.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, hey, let's restore some order.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So yelling -- yelling at me is not going to get any answer. OK?

FOREMAN (voice-over): Protested on their way to work.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We lost 10 percent of our workforce.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shut up and let him talk!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I will not, sir!

FOREMAN (voice-over): Republican lawmakers are being hammered by voters, including their own --

(BOOS)

FOREMAN (voice-over): -- over the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which is chain sawing federal jobs in blue and red states alike.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right now, I think we should just be using a scalpel.

FOREMAN (voice-over): And some elected leaders are now pushing back on DOGE's unelected cutter in chief.

SEN. JOHN CURTIS (R-UT): If I could say one thing to Elon Musk, it's like, please put a dose of compassion in this. These are real people.

REP. RICH MCCORMICK (R-GA): When you have a president who can affect somebody's business or somebody's livelihood, it just needs to be done with -- with deliberation.

FOREMAN (voice-over): For weeks, the parade of departing workers has been growing from the FAA to the IRS, from health agencies to the Small Business Administration, from Veterans Affairs to the national parks and more. And when Elon Musk demanded this past weekend that all remaining workers justify their employment in an e-mail or be fired, President Trump initially was all for it.

TRUMP: I thought it was great because we have people that don't show up to work, and nobody even knows if they work for the government.

FOREMAN (voice-over): But around a dozen departments in Trump's own administration effectively told their workers to ignore Musk. Trump appeared to back down, leaving party bosses to put the best face on a bad situation.

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA), U.S. HOUSE SPEAKER: I think the vast majority of the American people understand and applaud and appreciate the DOGE effort.

FOREMAN (voice-over): Polls indeed show voters want less government waste, but a slim majority now think DOGE has gone too far. And by the hour, it seems more GOP Congress members are subtly backing the resistance.

SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): If I were a Senate confirmed head of a department and I had somebody from the outside undermining my ability to manage and demonstrate, there's one leader in every department, I'd have a problem with it.

FOREMAN: To be sure, none of these Republican lawmakers want to directly oppose Donald Trump or his plans, but they do see that his plans are now costing them in a way that many clearly did not expect.

Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MACFARLANE: Well, one expert says the public outcry is a sign Americans are uniting and that the very values which President Trump ran on are now under threat.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SCOTT GALLOWAY, PROFESSOR OF MARKETING, NYU STERN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS: It is time for the wealthiest who control this government and who have access to Donald Trump to realize that what got them here were American values that are severely under threat. I'd like to think that people are recognizing that a tax cut for the rich, such that people in the greatest level of need get their medical benefits cut, that is a trade we did not sign up for. And I'd like to see we are seeing signs of people saying enough already, this is not what we bargained for.

Republicans and Democrats don't need to come together, they need to come to the rescue. Because this threatens the states that get the most benefits from these programs are actually mostly red states. This isn't a Republican, this isn't a left or right issue, it's an up or down issue.

[04:20:00]

It's the top 0.1 percent who have entered into an unholy alliance around tax cuts, such that they can cut the hell out of government programs that are going to benefit or really going to hurt the bottom 90. And I'd like to think we're seeing evidence of people that are joining the resistance and saying enough. This is not America, this is not what we signed up for.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MACFARLANE: And now a live look at Washington, where House Republicans have voted to advance President Donald Trump's agenda, which had seemed doomed just moments earlier. House Speaker Mike Johnson successfully flipped multiple Republican holdouts to push forward the budget blueprint. In the end, he lost just a single Republican vote, which was all he could afford.

This marks the first step towards moving the president's ambitious agenda forward, but some major obstacles do remain. The Republican-led House and Senate have adopted different budget plans, and settling on just one won't be easy. Lawmakers also face a looming government shutdown next month and the threat of an economic default in the weeks ahead.

Still to come, Catholics fill the Vatican with prayers for Pope Francis, who has now been in hospital for nearly two weeks.

And a blackout in Chile is affecting millions of households. What officials say is the cause and when they might get the power back.

And later, a new global ranking tells you exactly where to go to find the world's best coffee. Excellent. Let's see if you agree.

[04:25:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MACFARLANE: Around the world, and especially at the Vatican, prayers for 88-year-old Pope Francis, who remains in a Rome hospital where he's being treated for double pneumonia. A short time ago, the Vatican provided an update.

Let's go to CNN's Ben Wedeman, who's joining us from Rome. Ben, what news of the Pope this morning?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the morning update is usually quite terse. All we know from the Vatican press office is that Pope Francis passed a tranquil night and was resting. Now, the more detailed summary of his situation usually comes in the evening.

Yesterday evening, we heard that Pope Francis, 88-years-old, with persistent respiratory problems, was in critical but stable condition, that he had undergone a CT scan to check on his double pneumonia. But we also heard he's been fairly busy. On Monday, he met with two senior Vatican officials to sign degrees advancing the process of sainthood for several new saints.

Apparently, the Pope, who's very headstrong, quite obstinate, does want to get back to work, and that seems to be what he's doing at the moment, despite the fact that his health is still in a very precarious situation. Doctors are being very cautious about describing just how bad he is, and there's no clear sign at this point when he might be leaving the hospital. Certainly, it appears that it's going to be quite a few days before he can possibly leave.

But at the moment, he continues to undergo tests. Yesterday, we heard he's still receiving oxygen after Saturday's respiratory crisis, but oxygen at a lower flow and a lower concentration. So the doctors are being very cautious at this point.

Now, last night, what we saw for the second night in a row is that the faithful came out in brave winter rains and cold to pray for the Pope's speedy recovery. It appears that these nightly prayer vigils for the Pope in St. Peter's Square are going to continue until, hopefully, he gets out of the hospital -- Christina.

MACFARLANE: Yes, 13 days and counting. And it's important to note, Ben, that the Festival of Lent begins next week on Ash Wednesday, which is, of course, the lead-up to the most important festival in the Christian calendar, which is Easter, of course.

How significant might it be for the Vatican if the Pope is unable to be involved in the start of Lent? Do we know if there are any contingency plans being made? WEDEMAN: Well, certainly, what we've seen is that, for instance, two Sundays in a row, he was not able to deliver the Angelus prayers. So oftentimes, someone will stand in for him, read an address or a statement from him in his name, but certainly under the circumstances, he probably is not in a condition to do it in person. So there will always be somebody to stand in for him, but the question is, going forward, how long will he be willing to let others speak on his behalf?

This is a pope who, you know, apparently has pushed himself very hard, despite the fact in recent years his health problems have mounted. But the question is, at what point does he say, I cannot continue to function as a pope? And he has publicly considered in the past the idea of resignation, and we have the precedent of his predecessor, Pope Benedict, who resigned because of old age.

[04:30:00]

The question is at what point does the Pope decide that his physical medical situation will not allow him to continue to function as a Pope on a daily basis -- Christina?

MACFARLANE: All right Ben, appreciate it. Ben in Rome for now for us. Thanks very much.