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Heathrow Resumes Flights; Europe's Aid Plan for Ukraine Faces Reality Check; Boxing Heavyweight Great George Foreman Dead at 76; French Senator Shoots to Stardom after Anti-Trump Speech; Sudanese Army Retakes Presidential Palace in Khartoum; Trump Says Musk Wasn't Briefed on China War Plan; Trump Covets "Beautiful Landmass" of Canada; U.K. Researchers Use AI to Decode the Emotions of Pigs. Aired 4-5a ET

Aired March 22, 2025 - 04:00   ET

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

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KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Welcome to all of you watching us around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber. This is CNN NEWSROOM.

London's Heathrow Airport is returning to normal operations but the damage from that power outage is still being felt. We'll have the latest in a live report from one of the busiest airports in the world.

Russia's deadly strikes on Ukraine continue as a new round of ceasefire talks involving U.S. officials are taking shape.

Plus, what this French senator said about president Donald Trump and Elon Musk, that's getting him international attention.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from Atlanta, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Kim Brunhuber.

BRUNHUBER: One of the world's busiest airports is getting back to business with many flights resuming. That's after a fire and a power outage brought Heathrow in London to a complete standstill on Friday.

The airport's chief executive says he expects the transport hub to be back to full 100 percent operation by Saturday morning. It's currently just after 8:00 in the morning in London and flights have been coming and going for a couple of hours now.

Friday's electrical blackout disrupted global travel, throwing more than 1,000 flights into disarray and disrupting plans for tens of thousands of passengers. Heathrow's CEO defended how the airport handled the outage, saying it takes time to divert power after a substation failure. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) THOMAS WOLDBYE, CEO, HEATHROW AIRPORT: Contingencies of certain sizes, we cannot guard ourselves against 100 percent. And this is one of them. This has been a major incident. I mean, short of anybody getting hurt, this is as big as it gets for our airport.

And we are actually coming back quite fast, I would say. When you consider the amount of systems that we have to shut down, then bring back up and make sure that they're safe, it's fueling systems, it's bridges, it's escalators, elevators.

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BRUNHUBER: CNN's Larry Madowo is at Heathrow right now.

So Larry, the fire has been contained. Planes are flying in but the effects are far from over.

LARRY MADOWO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The effects will take a long time to clear. There's a massive backlog from a full day of a shutdown, almost 18 hours, where there were no flights taking off or landing. Heathrow was closed.

I was here yesterday when you could not even get into the terminal. It was a dead zone. I've never seen it like that. Right now, flights are back operating here at Heathrow. They're usually, at peak times, an average of 74 flights taking off or landing every hour.

That is why, when it was closed on Saturday, about 1,300 flights were affected. About 200,000 people who were trying to either leave Heathrow or come into Heathrow, they could not do so.

And that knockon effect will take a long time to clear. So all of today's flights are supposed to take off and arrive as they should have, as scheduled. But there's the whole backlog to clear, from the last day when people could not come in and leave and airlines will be scrambling to accommodate all the passengers.

Right now, it's been a very busy morning. I've seen aircraft from all around the world here. This is, after all, Europe's busiest airport, the fourth busiest in the world.

Back there I see, like, four United aircraft, Air Canada, Cathay Pacific, Ethiopian Airlines, United, Lufthansa, American Airlines, Air France, a lot of British Airways flights and planes here on the ground as people get on their way and try and, in some cases, account for the last day of delays.

There will be a lot of questions to answer for exactly how this could happen. One of the U.K.'s critical national infrastructure taken out because of a power -- a power outage after a fire at a substation supplying the aircraft -- supplying the airport.

The CEO of Heathrow explained that they could have continued operations because they lost one power substation but they had two more operating. But the problem is that they had to reroute and reengineer all the electrical requirements, which meant shutting down thousands of systems and then trying to reorganize that.

And it just took too long, though they're still happy with that time. But for passengers, passengers were inconvenienced. This was their worst nightmare. Listen.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My mom's birthday is tomorrow.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. And so it's missing, that's kind of going to be a pity.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So we're engaged and we've had just horrible travel luck, it seems, our whole relationship. So I don't know, we've had a hurricane out of season. You've gotten very sick.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Twice on one trip.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, interesting taxi drivers and Airbnbs and -- yes.

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MADOWO: A lot of people wondering, can they get compensation after having been delayed or canceled?

The answer is it's complicated because this was outside of the airline's control. They will not usually offer compensation.

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Maybe if you had travel insurance or maybe you bought from your credit card that offers that you could have compensation. But at the same time, now police in London investigating the cause of that fire. They're not treating it suspicious right now but they want to know exactly what happened.

BRUNHUBER: Yes. So many questions out there. Larry Madowo, thank you so much.

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BRUNHUBER: At least five people were killed across Ukraine on Friday just as negotiators prepare for a new round of ceasefire talks. The victims include a father and his teenage daughter, who died after a barrage of Russian drone strikes on Zaporizhzhya; 12 other people were injured.

And Odessa is reeling from a drone attack that caused massive fires in multiple locations. Meanwhile, negotiators are set to meet in Saudi Arabia on Monday to begin talks on a partial ceasefire. Ukraine's president says Kyiv is ready to go even further than that. But Russia isn't.

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VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): The deal of complete ceasefire has been on the table for a week. There is no ceasefire, only because Putin does not accept this offer. So we need to put pressure on Russia.

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BRUNHUBER: Officials tell us Russian and Ukrainian negotiators will be in separate rooms, with U.S. diplomats shuttling between them. The U.S. president says he's optimistic about the process. Here he is.

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TRUMP: Pretty soon have a full ceasefire and then we're going to have a contract. And the contract's being negotiated, the contract in terms of dividing up the lands, et cetera, et cetera. It's being negotiated as we speak.

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BRUNHUBER: I want to go now to Canberra, Australia, where we're joined by Malcolm Davis. He's a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

Good to see you again. So let's start with president Trump's promise that there's going to be a ceasefire very soon, in his words.

Is that the sense you have.?

MALCOLM DAVIS, SENIOR ANALYST, AUSTRALIAN STRATEGIC POLICY INSTITUTE: Not at all. I think what you're going to see is the Russians continue to string this out and play Trump for as long as possible.

Whilst they continue to attack the Ukrainians with very heavy strikes, like they did against Odessa and Zaporizhzhya and other areas of Ukraine over the last few days. They want to make as many gains on the ground as they possibly can before they even begin to negotiate seriously about a ceasefire.

And then what they will do is continue to add preconditions to those negotiations, because they believe that the Trump administration will give them what they want. So I don't really see a ceasefire anytime soon.

And if the ceasefire does actually happen, it won't necessarily mean a stable and enduring peace. It will just be a peace in our time agreement that gives the Russians time to recover and rearm and regroup, to launch the war again.

BRUNHUBER: Yes.

So you think Putin is basically stringing president Trump along here. As details of a partial ceasefire are worked out, senior military

officers from more than 30 countries met in England this week to flesh out plans for an international peacekeeping force, to guard in Ukraine and this sort of sort of coalition of the willing led by Britain and France.

Those are the only two countries so far that have agreed to send troops. Russia won't accept NATO countries on Ukrainian soil. Now an alternative, I guess, would be U.N. troops. But here's what President Zelenskyy had to say about that. Listen to this.

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ZELENSKYY (through translator): Regarding the U.N., with all due respect, the U.N. will not protect us from the occupation or Putin's desire to come back. We don't see the U.N. as an alternative for the military contingent or security guarantees.

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BRUNHUBER: So if this so-called reassurance force can't be NATO troops or U.N. troops, I mean, what's the alternative?

DAVIS: Well, firstly, we shouldn't allow Putin to have a veto over what the members of that peacekeeping force should be, if it's NATO or if it's E.U. That's what the force will be. And I think that we need to be strong enough in terms of how the Europeans are managing this, even if it's without the Americans behind them.

To make it clear that Europe will not be dictated to by Putin as to what they can and cannot do. I think Zelenskyy is right on the U.N. I think a U.N. force would be hopelessly weak and more than likely it would ally itself with -- or be, shall we say, sympathetic to Russia.

So I do think that Zelenskyy has a genuine and legitimate concern about a U.N. force. And I think what Europe needs to do is bring a force together that is strong enough to go in, support peace in terms of being neutral peacekeepers.

But that also does demand that the peacekeepers, if Russia does test that peace, the peacekeepers can actually respond effectively. You can't have a situation where a peacekeeping force goes in and then withdraws immediately the Russians challenge that peace agreement.

BRUNHUBER: Yes. The idea of a firm backstop there so important. You talk about Europe.

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I mean, there isn't unanimity in Europe for support for Ukraine. And we saw plans from the E.U. to send more aid to Ukraine. They were dramatically downgraded because some countries weren't on board.

So it just highlights the reality, again, as much as Ukraine and Europe can talk about adjusting to this world in which they don't rely on the U.S. militarily, it's actually bumping up against that reality right now.

DAVIS: That's correct. And I think what you are going to see is effectively a two-speed Europe emerge, where you have a coalition of the willing that is determined to stand up to Russia, that is prepared to put boots on the ground and planes in the air and ships at sea to counter any threat by Russia, either against Ukraine or against NATO.

And you're also going to have states in Europe that maybe are more aligned to Russia. And I'm thinking Hungary here and maybe Slovakia, that are refusing to support any European operation. And I think that if you can't bring them on board, well, you can't bring them on board. We have to go without them.

I think also what is contributing to this division within Europe is fear of Russia's willingness to escalate, it's fear of Russia's nuclear arsenal. And I think that challenge by Russia does need to be called. It does need to see a Europe that stands up to that.

And I think president Macron talking about extending a nuclear deterrent across Europe is the right move in that regard.

BRUNHUBER: Yes.

We'll have to leave it there. But great to get your analysis, Malcolm Davis, thank you so much.

DAVIS: Thank you.

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BRUNHUBER: Israel's military says it intercepted three projectiles fired from Lebanon early Saturday, the first such incident in more than three months. They say two other projectiles fell back into Lebanese territory. No casualties or damage have been reported.

Meantime, the Israeli defense minister has warned Hamas let the hostages go or Israel will keep a permanent presence in parts of Gaza. Israel is escalating a new offensive in Gaza after a fragile ceasefire collapsed on Tuesday.

Since then, Israeli strikes on the enclave have reportedly killed hundreds of people. Now it seems the Israeli military is looking to expand ground operations.

For its part, Hamas says it's considering the latest U.S. ceasefire plan for Gaza and remains, quote, "fully engaged" in the mediation process.

Mass protests continued in several cities across Turkiye on Friday over the government detention of Istanbul's mayor.

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BRUNHUBER (voice-over): Thousands of protesters have been taking to the streets and defying a ban on public gatherings. In some cities, that's led to clashes with police. Protesters are demanding the government release Istanbul's mayor, a key opposition rival to Turkiye's president.

Authorities detained Ekrem Imamoglu on Wednesday as part of an investigation into corruption and terrorism.

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BRUNHUBER: A French senator held nothing back as he castigated the Trump administration and, not long after his speech, turned him into a global celebrity of sorts. We'll have that story and more coming up. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: George Foreman, one of boxing's most iconic fighters, died peacefully at the age of 76, according to a social media account.

CNN's Stephanie Elam has more on the man called one of the sport's most powerful punchers.

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STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When you hear the name George Foreman, electric grilling may pop into mind.

GEORGE FOREMAN, TWO-TIME BOXING HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION AND BUSINESSMAN: Get ready to cook some burgers on the George Foreman family size grill.

ELAM (voice-over): But the affable pitchman was once one of the most feared heavyweight fighters in the world.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: George Foreman, 257 pounds.

MIKE TYSON, FORMER HEAVYWEIGHT BOXING CHAMPION: Watching him box on when he was younger and stuff, he did a big ring galoot and stuff. And, that's how, like, I he was like the Mike Tyson before Mike Tyson.

FOREMAN (voice-over): One punch of mine was equal to 20 of any other heavyweight champ.

ELAM (voice-over): Foreman's awesome punching power won him 76 matches in his career, 20 more than perhaps his fiercest competitor, Muhammad Ali.

A rebellious teenage Foreman was introduced to boxing by legendary trainer Doc Broadus in 1966. Broadus encouraged the Houston native to use the sport as a way to avoid gang life in the streets. It worked. And by 1968, he won a gold medal for the U.S. Olympic team. The next year, he turned pro. Foreman won his first 37 professional fights, earning a shot at the heavyweight title against Smokin' Joe Frazier in 1973. Although considered the underdog, Foreman won by technical knockout in less than two rounds.

Then there was October 30th, 1974, the Rumble in the Jungle. The fight in Central Africa capitalized on the assumed beef between Foreman and Muhammad Ali, which Foreman says was far from the truth.

FOREMAN: We never had any face-to-face confrontation. It was -- when I met him in the ring, that was as close as we had gotten. I heard that on the news he called me the Frankenstein monster but he was only saying that because it was true.

ELAM (voice-over): It was one of the most watched live TV events of all time and the world had a front row seat to the only knockout defeat of George Foreman.

FOREMAN: I felt like he threw maybe 150. I still feel those punches. I just underestimated one of the greatest fighters of all time.

ELAM (voice-over): Foreman made several attempts to regain the title and came up empty. With his back on the ropes, he would later say he had spiritual awakening and ultimately became an ordained minister.

But the man of the cloth didn't completely throw in the boxing towel. In 1994, a then 45-year-old Foreman defeated a 26-year old to reclaim the heavyweight champion belt. He held on to it for three years, hanging up his gloves after losing his title to Shannon Briggs.

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In retirement, the man with the iron fist reemerged as the man with the electric grill, the Foreman Grill.

FOREMAN: We sold first 5,000, 10,000, 500,000. And one day, we looked up to this day over 100 million.

ELAM (voice-over): His Lean, Mean Grilling Machine reportedly netted him hundreds of millions of dollars. Along the way, the man affectionately known as "Big George" wrote a few books, starred in several movies and television series and showed the world, with the right combination, you can win anything.

FOREMAN: And I talk to young kids all the time. They want to be famous in sports. Love what you're doing but understand that athletics is just a small part of your life. Do other things, too. You can be heavyweight champion for the world. But there's more to it than that.

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BRUNHUBER: President Trump is expanding his crackdown on the legal community in the U.S. On Friday, the president ordered attorney general Pam Bondi to review the conduct of lawyers and law firms he believes have filed frivolous lawsuits against his administration or tried to block immigration initiatives.

He's vowing to punish them by rescinding security clearances and canceling federal contracts. Now this comes as a federal judge said the White House's use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport some migrants has frightening implications. CNN's Evan Perez has more.

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EVAN PEREZ, CNN SR. JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: The federal judge called president Donald Trump's use of a 1798 law to deport alleged members of a Venezuelan gang awfully frightening and unprecedented.

As he vowed to determine whether the Trump administration had purposely violated one of his orders to halt the deportations over the weekend.

U.S. district judge James Boasberg held a roughly 90-minute hearing on Friday, much of which he spent focusing on whether judges can even review the president's broad national security powers.

Boasberg has blocked Trump's use of the Alien Enemies Act to quickly deport migrants, whom the U.S. says are affiliated with the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. The administration is arguing that Boasberg exceeded his authority blocking the removals because they say that Trump's use of the law is unreviewable by federal courts.

President Trump sharply criticized the judge, who was first appointed to the bench by George W. Bush and then elevated by Barack Obama.

The judge expressed concern about the policy implications of the Trump's use of the law for these purposes, calling it an unprecedented and expanded use of the 18th century wartime law that has been rarely invoked.

The judge opened and closed the hearing by addressing another looming question, whether he plans to hold administration officials accountable for proceeding with the deportations, even as he ordered the planes that were already in the air to turn back around.

The judge said, quote, "I will get to the bottom of whether they violated my order, who ordered this and what the consequences will be."

The judge also lambasted Justice Department lawyers for giving him what he said was woefully insufficient information in response to his request for more details about the deportations.

Department lawyers have resisted providing information about exactly who the people are that were being deported. And they've cited national security reasons for declining to provide that information -- Evan Perez, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BRUNHUBER: Well, he compared U.S. president Donald Trump to an infamous Roman emperor, called Elon Musk a buffoon and described the White House as a bunch of yes men. That's how one French senator summed up the current situation in Washington. And as Melissa Bell reports, that speech was his ticket to international fame.

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CLAUDE MALHURET, FRENCH SENATOR (through translator): Washington has become Nero's court with an incendiary emperor, submissive courtiers and a buffoon on ketamine in charge of purging the civil service.

MELISSA BELL, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Words delivered to the French senate that resonated far beyond, picked up by CNN after they went viral online.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Those last words really stuck with me.

BELL: Senator Claude Malhuret's criticism of President Trump and Elon Musk leading to sudden stardom.

MALHURET: Many of the mails I received are saying the same thing. It's -- why is it a French parliamentarian who makes such a speech?

It should be one of our parliamentarian, member of Congress or member of the Senate in the United States.

BELL: The speech was written, Malhuret says, in outrage after watching Ukrainian President Zelenskyy's humiliation by President Trump and his most senior officials in the oval office three weeks ago.

TRUMP: Military equipment.

BELL: Outrage shared by all of Ukraine's allies.

[04:25:00]

The nerve struck by the senator speaks to the deep sense of betrayal currently felt in Europe, France, America's oldest ally, had even gifted the Statue of Liberty to the United States in the 19th century to celebrate their common attachment to democracy, keeping just a smaller version of it here in Paris.

RAPHAEL GLUCKSMANN, FRENCH POLITICIAN (through translator): Give us back the Statue of Liberty. We gave it to you as a present but apparently you didn't like it. We want the big one.

BELL: A symbolic demand, says Raphael Glucksmann, who's an outspoken European lawmaker who also struck a nerve this week this time in the White House.

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: My advice to that unnamed low level French politician would be to remind them that its only because of the United States of America that the French are not speaking German right now. GLUCKSMANN: Actually, for me, it would be even worse. I would not even exist because my family would have been killed. But the truth is, I'm not sure that if Trump was in the White House instead of Roosevelt, we would not be right now speaking German.

BELL: Back in the French senate, it is now into English that Senator Claude Malhuret says he'll be translating future speeches.

MALHURET: We were at war with a dictator. Now were fighting against a dictator supported by a traitor.

BELL: To make sure that he is heard loud and clear across the Atlantic -- Melissa Bell, CNN, Paris.

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BRUNHUBER: Self-proclaimed misogynist Andrew Tate and his brother are back in Romania to check in with police. They're facing charges including human trafficking and forming an organized crime group.

They deny all the accusations and say they're there to clear their names. The Romanians let them go to Florida last month as they await trial, only to find they're now under a criminal investigation in the U.S. state.

The brothers are required to check in regularly with Romanian police. Andrew Tate is a U.S. born professional fighter, who gained a huge online following by peddling sexist content about male dominance.

All right. Coming up, some people in Sudan are celebrating an army victory in their battle with the paramilitary rebels. The latest developments in the civil war just ahead.

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BRUNHUBER: Welcome back to all of you watching us around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber. This is CNN NEWSROOM.

Now to a major development in Sudan's civil war. Reuters reports that the Sudanese army seized control of the main headquarters of the country's central bank. It's been making advances against its rival, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces or RSF.

The takeover comes a day after the Sudanese army retook the presidential palace in Khartoum. The structure has been under the control of the paramilitary group since fighting broke out almost a year ago.

The conflict has triggered one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. More than 28,000 people have died, with 11 million others forced to flee their homes. That's according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Initiative. The Sudanese army says it will continue its push to retake the capital.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Through you. We promise the Sudanese people that we will continue. This battle won't stop. We are moving on.

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BRUNHUBER: And joining me now from Nairobi is Alan Boswell, the Horn of Africa director at the International Crisis Group.

Thanks so much for being here with us. So obviously, retaking the capital has been one of the main objectives of the Sudanese army.

How big a victory are the gains that we're seeing now?

ALAN BOSWELL, HORN OF AFRICA DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP: Well, the advances that we're seeing suggest that the Sudanese army is basically on the cusp of retaking Khartoum. The writing is on the wall.

And really, it's just a matter of time, I think, before they more or less consolidate control over the capital and push out the rest of these RSF forces or at least the remaining amounts would not be probably strategically significant.

BRUNHUBER: All right. So some context, very briefly, if you could.

What's the main reason behind this, this shift in momentum?

BOSWELL: Yes. Well, this is a -- just to say that this war has been a war primarily fought for Khartoum. It started in Khartoum. So this is a -- this is a really huge a turning point. I mean, the Sudanese army losing the control of the capital to this paramilitary, RSF, at the beginning of the war was basically what led to Sudan's collapse.

The Sudanese army took basically two years to manage to regroup, almost two years. They basically armed a bunch of other anti-RSF militias to help them fight this. And they got quite a bit of significant outside support. Both sides are getting outside support.

But the RSF is basically having to take its weapons all the way from Central Africa, through Western Sudan to Khartoum. It's much easier for the Sudanese army to basically get supplies from the Red Sea and they have a lot more backers. So with the matter, basically, with enough time, they've managed to turn the tide in this war.

BRUNHUBER: All right.

So how far do you think they can turn the tide? Is what we're seeing now a springboard for the army to take back most

or all of the country, the Western regions controlled by the RSF, like Darfur?

Or do you think the RSF can regroup?

BOSWELL: Well, it'll be much harder for them to continue making these same sort of gains in Western Sudan, in the Kordofan region and in -- and in Darfur.

The, you know, the central region of Sudan, the riverine areas around the Nile River, which where Khartoum sits, has always been, you know, basically the stronghold of the Sudanese army.

So this was territory that, in many ways, RSF was, you know, occupying. Many people saw them as occupiers. And this was basically the home turf of the army. If this war shifts to the West, you know, much of that area is basically the home turf of the ISF.

I think a full-out military victory here would be difficult but the ISF speed of collapse suggests that they're facing real internal problems. So I think the army could continue to make some gains.

I think the question is when ultimately this war can just end in terms of a peaceful resolution, because otherwise it could -- it could go on for probably many years in Western Sudan.

BRUNHUBER: OK. Well, exactly on that then, if you say a military victory, at least in the shorter term, is unlikely, do you think this momentum from the Sudanese army will push the RSF to peace talks?

I mean, it seems like neither side has wanted to talk peace so far.

BOSWELL: It's been the Sudanese army that's been the party that's most resisted peace talks thus far.

[04:35:00]

And thus far we have not seen any signs or heard from them directly, publicly or privately, that they're really considering now pivoting toward peace after taking this capital.

But they are getting substantial support from the outside. Major backers in the region include Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as well as others, Qatar, Turkiye, et cetera. Some of those countries might be more keen to see this war wrap up now that the Sudanese army retook the capital.

You know, this war is costly. War is -- creates uncertainty and chaos, sort of, throughout the region. So I expect that we'll start to see more pressure on the Sudanese army from the outside and from their own backers to give peace talks a bit more of a consideration.

BRUNHUBER: Yes, let's hope so, because it's worth underlining the cost of this war. As I said in the beginning, tens of thousands of people killed; millions driven from their homes, causing widespread famine. This war cannot come to an end soon enough. Alan Boswell, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

BOSWELL: Thank you, Kim.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: All right. Now to Elon Musk, the man in charge of slashing U.S. government costs and staffing. Visiting the Pentagon on Friday, he met with the Defense Secretary for more than an hour. Pete Hegseth called the meeting fantastic, without elaborating on what was said.

But "The New York Times" story about the meeting relating to China had the president and the White House defending the visit. President Trump rejected reports that Musk was being briefed on U.S. military plans for a potential war with China. Here's the president.

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TRUMP: We don't want to have a potential war with China but, I can tell you, if we did, we're very well equipped to handle it. But I don't want to show that to anybody. But certainly you wouldn't show it to a businessman who is helping us so much. You know, Elon has businesses in China. And he would be susceptible, perhaps, to that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: Well, Elon Musk's interests in China are massive. In fact, half the Teslas in the world are made in China. But Musk is now faced with Tesla's growing financial problems.

And just before his visit to the Pentagon, Musk called a surprise late-night all-hands meeting of Tesla employees, where he urged them not to sell their Tesla stock, which is one of the worst performing stocks in the S&P 500 this year.

All showing how much is at stake as Taiwan prepares for potential war with China. CNN's Will Ripley explains the link.

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WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Taiwan does its own war simulations.

We're inside a top military think tank in Taiwan's capital, tracking Chinese warships just 24 nautical miles off the coast. If China invades Taiwan, it could mean war with the U.S.

Are there Chinese warships around Taiwan right now?

SU TZU-YUN, DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE FOR NATIONAL DEFENSE AND SECURITY RESEARCH: Yes.

RIPLEY: Always?

Are they always there?

SU: Yes. RIPLEY: So they could theoretically fire at any time.

SU: Yes. Conduct a so-called new kind of missile surprise attack.

RIPLEY: A new round of Chinese military drills. The People's Liberation Army says are meant to suppress, quote, Taiwan separatist forces. The island is responding with its own military exercises, preparing for the possibility of war. How likely would a surprise attack be with no warning.

SU: From their missile to the target, just three minutes.

RIPLEY: Three minutes warning is all you'd have.

SU: There are three stages.

RIPLEY: Taiwan runs constant military simulations, the same kind of planning Elon Musk was reportedly expected to be briefed on at the Pentagon, according to "The New York Times."

ERIC SCHMITT, REPORTER, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": The kinds of targets that you might hit in China, the timing of these -- these kind of strikes. So it can get into very technical detail.

RIPLEY: Trump pushed back on that reporting.

In Beijing, the official response, silence.

But on China's tightly controlled social media, censors are allowing comments like this. Musk will brief the military on this week's layoff plan.

Is this meant to have him pass the message to China?

Shanghai Tesla could switch to making shells for China during wartime. don't worry, Musk is one of us.

The billionaire mogul's close relationship with Chinese officials helped him build this, Tesla's massive Gigafactory in Shanghai finished fast with state support, now producing more than half of Tesla's global output.

Musk has publicly praised China's leadership, raising alarm here in Taiwan. He once questioned whether Taiwan's status is similar to Hawaii's in the U.S. even suggesting it could be a special administrative zone under Beijing's control.

Taiwan's former foreign minister criticized his comments and said the island is not for sale.

Do you think the PLA is preparing for war with Taiwan and even with the U.S.?

SU: Yes, I do believe that China will conduct a war.

RIPLEY: China is developing tools to move tanks and troops across the sea fast. CNN obtained MAXAR's satellite images taken Friday. China testing a new method to rapidly transport military vehicles and personnel.

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Using three stacked barges and a civilian ferry that could be loaded with tanks. Analysts say this kind of drill may be used in a Taiwan invasion scenario, where speed and surprise would be critical.

Why is China building such a large navy?

What do they need it for?

SU: It's not only just for unification Taiwan. The real answer is China trying to become a sea power.

RIPLEY: And he says a power in the air and in space for Taiwan, who the U.S. chooses to trust, it could mean the difference between peace and war.

Elon Musk's SpaceX is now seen as so critical to the Pentagon that China actually considers it part of the U.S. military. A Chinese military university even published a paper on Starlink and its militarization.

Starlink is not active here in Taiwan because the company won't comply with rules requiring 50 percent local ownership. That means that Elon Musk could theoretically turn it off at any moment, even during wartime, a risk that Taiwan is simply not willing to take -- Will Ripley, CNN, Taipei.

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BRUNHUBER: Greenland is expanding its airport infrastructure as international intrigue draws thousands of visitors to the Arctic island. Coming up, the latest on a boom in tourism there. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: Donald Trump is digging in on his rhetoric about annexing Canada, now calling it a, quote, "beautiful landmass."

The U.S. president is also denying that adding a so-called 51st state might swell the ranks of Democrats in the U.S. Even weighed in on Canadian politics, with the country expected to call a general election on Sunday to be held in a few weeks. Here he is.

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TRUMP: Now is it liberal? Maybe. But you know, a conservative, until I got involved because I don't care who wins up there. It frankly probably would do better with the liberal than the conservative, if you want to know the truth.

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BRUNHUBER: Mark Carney, Canada's new prime minister and leader of the Liberal Party, has said talks with his counterpart wouldn't happen until Canada is treated with respect. Now he wants to lower trade barriers between provinces as a hedge against lost U.S. business.

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MARK CARNEY, CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER: We are creating a one-window approval process. We are tabling, we are committing to table legislation by the 1st of July for goods to travel across the country, barrier free or free of barriers, of federal barriers.

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BRUNHUBER: With Canada and the U.S. involved in a trade war over tariffs, polls show most Canadians are furious about talk of becoming a U.S. state.

Meanwhile, president Trump is also continuing to push his vision of a U.S.-owned Greenland. But with recent strides toward independence, Greenland is looking to leverage its moment in the international spotlight. CNN's Lynda Kinkade has the latest on the influx of foreign tourists visiting the island.

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LYNDA KINKADE, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Greenland is seeing green, thanks to an influx of U.S. dollars. President Donald Trump's attention and a new airport has led to a surge in visitors.

LARS IPLAND, DENMARK RESIDENT: It was one of the last parts of the world I haven't seen, actually, so it was on my bucket list. So that's why I want to come here.

KINKADE (voice-over): The new international airport in the capital, Nuuk, is making it easier than ever to explore one of the world's most remote yet captivating destinations. And it's only going to get easier, with major airlines offering direct flights this summer.

JENS LAURIDSEN, CEO, GREENLAND AIRPORTS: And what we're seeing already this summer here in Nuuk is quite a significant increase, both in the number of operators -- we will have SAS coming in, we have United Airlines coming in, we have Air Greenland increasing their -- the number of aircraft significantly. And the same with Icelandair.

So we will see quite a significant growth this summer already.

KINKADE (voice-over): While the new airport has been a major boost, there's no question the political spotlight is adding more fuel to Greenland's tourism rise.

In January, Donald Trump Jr. visited Nuuk's new airport, drawing attention to his father's interest in making the island part of the United States.

President Trump, highlighting what he calls the need for the island in his address to Congress this month.

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TRUMP: We need Greenland for national security and even international security and we're working with everybody involved to try and get it. But we need it really for international world security. And I think we're going to get it. One way or the other we're going to get it.

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KINKADE (voice-over): Last week, Greenland, which is a self-governing territory of Denmark, held an election, in which all the major parties agreed on independence from Denmark and, if necessary, the United States.

So while the U.S. pursuit of Greenland remains a hot button topic, one thing is clear: the island is already reaping the benefits of its newfound global attention.

IVIK KNUDSEN-OSTERMANN, CEO, GREENLAND CRUISES: We are getting much more bookings than that -- that we have received earlier, especially because of a man with the last name of Trump, has really put Greenland on the map once again.

KINKADE (voice-over): Whether by air, land or sea, statistics are backing that more and more people are checking Greenland off their bucket list. Statistics Greenland reporting a 14 percent increase year on year in visitors for the month of January.

And while a potential U.S. takeover of Greenland is very much still up in the air, more and more U.S. tourists are hitting the ground -- Lynda Kinkade, CNN.

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BRUNHUBER: Researchers in England are exploring a new use for artificial intelligence. Ahead on CNN NEWSROOM, how AI Is helping decode the emotions of pigs and what it could mean for farmers. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: You've probably wondered at some point what an animal might be feeling. Well, scientists in the U.K. are now using artificial intelligence to translate the emotions of pigs. CNN's Allison Chinchar explains how the Intelli-Pig program could help farmers better care for their livestock.

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ALLISON CHINCHAR, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Animals have emotions just like humans. But are they as simple to detect?

AI may be able to answer that question with train technology.

The University of West England Bristol and Scotland's Rural College developed the Intelli-Pig, a system that will work to translate a pig's emotions into a form humans can understand and alert farmers if an animal needs immediate attention.

It starts with placing a camera inside an automated feeder. When pigs get hungry, the system gets to work.

MELVYN SMITH, PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST OF ENGLAND BRISTOL: The camera image would be processed by an AI algorithm which would recognize the individual.

So in order to do that, we first have to train it. So we'd have to show it examples of that individual over a number of days with different pose and different lightings.

CHINCHAR: As the system learns to identify the different features of each animal, it will store that information for future use.

Once the system recognizes that specific pig as it walks up to the feeder and puts its head down to eat, experts hope AI will be able to capture their different emotions and their well-being.

SMITH: There must be features there that we pick up on, even if they're subconscious in some way. There's something about the way the animal looks that we pick up on and then tells us, you know, whether it's in a good or a bad state emotionally.

CHINCHAR: Professor Smith says the research they've seen on pigs so far has been more focused on the negative emotions. But with this technology, they want to change that and show the positives, too.

SMITH: The next step is very much to expand this from the face to the whole animal, to be more holistic. In other words, seeing how the animal is moving, how it holds itself, that richer data, does that tell us something more that's useful?

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CHINCHAR: Right now, farmers are unable to monitor their pigs regularly. So over the next 1.5 years, experts will continue to work to make sure the Intelli-Pig can give farmers the opportunity to track their pigs' overall well-being.

This might also give them a jump start on early detection of health decline or anything else that may need intervention.

SMITH: I think that's really exciting. The idea that a -- that a machine can tell the emotional state of an animal, perhaps in a way that we can't I think could be really interesting.

CHINCHAR: They hope to complete the project by September 2026 -- Allison Chinchar, CNN.

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BRUNHUBER: Two of Hong Kong's beloved panda cubs were reunited with their mother at Ocean Park Friday. The cubs, known as Elder Sister and Little Brother, interacted with their mom, Ying Ying, inside an enclosure after spending days under careful observation and training.

Officials say the pandas have successfully adapted to their new environment. And on Saturday, Mom and their twins will greet park visitors together from the exhibit area for the first time.

It will be exciting.

That wraps this hour of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Kim Brunhuber. I'll be back with more news in just a moment. Please do stay with us.