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U.S. Targets Alleged Drug-Trafficking Boats Off Venezuela; Thieves Steal Priceless Jewelry From The Louvre in Seven-Minute Raid; George Santos Speaks To CNN After Trump's Commutation. Aired 3-4p ET

Aired October 19, 2025 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:24]

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN HOST: All right, some pretty terrifying moments aboard an Air China flight. Take a look!

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WHITFIELD: Yes, that is happening. Chinese state media says a lithium battery spontaneously exploded there, sparking a fire in the plane's overhead bin. They say the battery came from a passenger's carry-on luggage. No one was injured after the cabin crew put out the flames. You can hear the screams though and the confusion.

The incident forced the South Korea bound flight to make an emergency landing at an airport in Shanghai.

And at least four people have been injured after a high-rise building in Hong Kong caught fire according to local officials. New video on social media shows the flames and black smoke billowing from the tower on Saturday. More than 50 people were successfully evacuated and officials say firefighters were able to extinguish the blaze after more than four hours. Officials told local media an investigation team will look into determining the cause of this fire and why it spread so rapidly.

All right, hello again, and thank you so much for joining me. I am Fredricka Whitfield. This just in to CNN. The U.S. military has carried out another strike on a boat that American intelligence officials believe was carrying weapons.

Also, this just in to CNN --

All right, Betsy Klein is joining us now on what has just transpired involving Venezuela. So Betsy, sorry about that. At the very top, we've got a few technical glitches, but let us know more now on this latest strike and how it is sparking an escalation in the war of words with Trump, and now Colombia's President as well.

BETSY KLEIN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER AND WRITER: Yes, Fredricka, President Trump announcing today that the U.S. will end all subsidies and payments to Colombia. This marks the latest and a significant escalation in a long back and forth with Colombian President Gustavo Petro. And in a post to social media earlier this morning, President Trump says that drug production, "Has become the biggest business in Colombia by far. And Petro does nothing to stop it despite large scale payments and subsidies from the USA that are nothing more than a long term rip-off of America. As of today, these payments or any other form of payment or subsidies will no longer be made to Colombia."

Now, Trump and Petro have long clashed on issues like migration and drug trafficking. Of course, this comes as the U.S. military has launched strikes on what it says are illegal drug trafficking operations in the Caribbean. But this marks an intensification and one with real financial implications.

Colombia has long been a key ally to the U.S. in South America on issues like National Security and Defense, and the U.S. has been one of Colombia's biggest funders on Defense issues. And the U.S. also provided this fiscal year about $210 million in subsidies, according to data from the U.S. Department of State. It is not really clear at this point what money the President is talking about here, but these two leaders have been sparring for months.

You may recall that when Petro was in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, he told U.S. soldiers to disobey President Trump. The U.S., in turn revoking his visa.

But he did respond to the President earlier today in a post to social media, Petro, invoking his country's revered Nobel Prize winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, as he "You are rude and ignorant toward Colombia. Read as your charge d' affaires in Colombia did 100 years of solitude, and I assure you, you will learn something about solitude."

Petro did not, however, address the financial implications of the President's announcement. But all of this comes, as you mentioned, there have been, according to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a seventh known strike in the Caribbean. He announced that on Friday the U.S. Struck another vessel in the area. He said it was a ship with a substantial amount of narcotics on board that was affiliated, Fredricka, with a Colombian terrorist organization.

WHITFIELD: All right, Betsy Klein, thank you so much.

Right now to this breaking news out of Paris. Investigators are searching for the thieves who broke into The Louvre during a daring daytime robbery just minutes after the museum opened.

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Police say thieves used a truck lift, which you can see there on the right, lower right there to break into an upstairs window, and then in just seven minutes, they made off with rare historical jewelry before getting away on motorcycles.

The museum was closed and visitors were evacuated through the rest of the day. Tourists in the museum described walking past the gallery where the robbery took place.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JIM CARPENTER, WAS VISITING LOUVRE DURING ROBBERY: And we went right past the Apollo Gallery onto the level with the Italian paintings and then another round of technical difficulties, and then off we went back the way we had come in past the same galleries, and then back down the stairs. Lots of confusion, lots of misdirection. And they ran us all out.

JOAN CARPENTER, WAS VISITING LOUVRE DURING ROBBERY: They would say go this way and that would be closed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: CNN senior international correspondent, Melissa Bell is joining me right now from Paris, where the city is still lit up and beautiful, but this investigation is really rattling a lot of people.

MELISSA BELL, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Fredricka.

This was really the most brazen heist to take place here at The Louvre Museum in Paris since the Mona Lisa was stolen in the early 20th Century. What we understand is that even tonight, this manhunt is underway. They're looking for four people that they believe used that forklift truck that you showed just a moment, Fredricka, to make their way to that window, setting off alarms.

But in just seven minutes, making off with what we understand were nine pieces of jewelry. One of which was the crown of the Empress Eugenie, the wife of Napoleon III was found just at the foot of The Louvre. They obviously dropped it as they made off on their motorcycles. The rest? Eight pieces of jewelry, a couple of them, a tiara, a couple of brooches, earrings belonging to that same Empress, but also other jewelry belonging to other Queens of France stolen.

This was, after all, Fredricka, the room in which France's crown jewels are held. So a very brazen heist that happened at about 9:30 A.M. The museum had been open for about half an hour. It is packed on a Sunday, as you would imagine. Everyone evacuated as they could try and clear the scene to get what elements they could to start their investigation.

For now, though, those four people remain at-large, as do those eight pieces of jewelry. We don't have any particular price to put on them, but these are according to several French officials, including the Culture Minister, items that are of priceless value in terms of heritage, culture and France's history.

So a manhunt underway to try and figure out who these people are, what we do know from investigators early on, Fredricka, is that they were very well prepared, no doubt very professional robbers. There was nothing left to chance. They were in and out of there in seven minutes with all of that priceless jewelry in their arms.

WHITFIELD: Right! And very brazen as you underscore, happening in the middle of the day. So then will investigators -- or are they sharing that they're going to, you know, show pictures or something about, you know, the cache of things that were stolen?

BELL: We do expect that we will get greater clarity in terms of photographs of these items. We are beginning to get a list of exactly what was taken, the specific pieces of jewelry.

What we do understand as well, Fredricka, is that there was CCTV, so they do have images from inside that Apollo Room, as it is called, where France's crown jewels were held. They have the video to show what happened, but not very much more.

They did find a sort of yellow vest that one of the robbers dropped as he made off. These were high powered scooters, motorcycles that they made off on afterwards, but for now, the manhunt continues and no sign of the jewels.

The question is really also what they could do with them on the open market. These are France's crown jewels, after all. It would be very difficult for them to sell. The question is what they hope to do with them once they had them, would they be broken up? Who were they stolen for? So many questions, again, the most brazen of heists with authorities really, for now, scrambling to figure out where the jewels and where the robbers might be.

WHITFIELD: Yes. Quite incredible.

All right, Melissa Bell, thank you so much.

All right, and now to this breaking news out of the Middle East. We are just learning that Vice President J.D. Vance is expected to lead a U.S. delegation to Israel this week as the Trump administration moves to implement phase two of its ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas. U.S. Envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are expected to join him.

Meantime, the IDF, the Israeli Defense Force says two Israeli soldiers were killed earlier today in Gaza. It says Hamas militants fired at Israeli forces across the so-called yellow line, which was established in the ceasefire agreement. Israel then carried out dozens of strikes on Hamas targets in Gaza. At least 36 people were killed in those strikes, according to Gaza hospital records.

Aid was also cut off for the day, but Israeli officials now say it will resume on Monday.

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Today's fighting is a major test for the ceasefire agreement that is now in its second week.

All right, still ahead, the disgraced former Republican Congressman George Santos, speaking to CNN fresh off his release from prison. What he said about paying back the victims that he defrauded. Plus, new developments in the urgent search for Kada Scott, the young woman who disappeared from the Philadelphia area nearly two weeks ago. What investigators just discovered from a very specific anonymous tip.

And prehistoric wolves, mammoth-like mice and 12-foot tall flightless birds. One company's colossal effort to bring ancient and extinct animals back to life.

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WHITFIELD: Disgraced former Republican Congressman George Santos is speaking out today on CNN's "State of the Union" less than two days following his release from prison after President Trump commuted his sentence.

Santos pleaded guilty to charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. He served only three months of a more than seven-year prison sentence, and he says he learned about his commutation from the prison television,.

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DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR AND POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: You were ordered to -- by the court to pay $370,000.00 in restitution to the people you defrauded. Will you still pay that back?

GEORGE SANTOS, FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE: Well, if you really say the people, I just want to be clear with your audience so that we are not misleading them, 85 percent of that really goes into the investment made into my campaign for polling and, T.V. ads and literature by the National Republican Congressional Committee. The investment was made to win a race. I won that race. There was no fraud there. This is a case we argued with the prosecution, but they needed to inflate the numbers in order to make it a more appealing case for them in federal court, instead of just going after the mishandling of finances, which, by the way, most members of Congress currently who are still serving in both parties, who ever have had issues with FEC filings, they pay fines. Nobody actually goes to prison.

So its inequitable in its nature.

BASH: Well, this is about a fine, and this is about paying money back. And whether you describe them as victims or just donors to the NRCC, what the court said is that they should get their money back. Will you work to try to do that?

SANTOS: Well, look, I can -- I can do my best to do whatever the law requires of me. So I don't know what that is. I've been out of prison for two days. I agreed to come here to speak with you candidly and openly, and not to obfuscate. If it is required of me by the law, yes. If it is not, then no.

I will do whatever the law requires me to do. BASH: You have said now a couple of times that you feel remorse, and you are humbled. What will that look like in an actual terms in the way that you live your life?

SANTOS: You know, I learned a lot. I've met a lot of interesting people. Prison is a place where everything -- it is the great equalizer, quite literally. It doesn't matter -- I was incarcerated with a billionaire and I was incarcerated with people who were homeless and it is a great equalizer and it is very sobering.

And you hear the stories, and, you know, we are just human beings. We go through different walks of life, and we have trouble. And the reality really comes down to, how can I help rehabilitate people? How can I be a voice of helping change a system that needs desperate changing to help rehabilitation?

Prison is not rehabilitating anybody. Its actually creating recidivism because it is not doing what it is supposed to do. I'd love it -- and I told this to the President that I'd love to be involved with prison reform and not in a partisan way, in a real human way, in a way that we affect it, that it helps society, it helps these individuals rebuild their lives and we have a better system with less incarcerated people.

America today has 250,000 federal inmates, approximately, and I think it would be much nicer to look at reducing that number. And if I can be a part of helping that, I would -- I think that would be a great road to follow in the future.

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WHITFIELD: All right, still ahead, a Philadelphia scholar and beauty queen has not been seen for two weeks and her family, they want answers. Now, we are learning new details about the search for Kada Scott and the suspect now in custody.

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WHITFIELD: All right, welcome back.

Two weeks after a 23-year-old Philadelphia woman went missing, human remains belonging to an unidentified female have been found in a shallow grave. The remains were located in a heavily wooded area behind an abandoned school after officials say they received an anonymous tip.

Police say the remains are now with the Medical Examiner's Office. CNN's Rafael Romo has been following this story for us. So what are you learning about this investigation and about Kada Scott? She was a -- you know, Penn State grad. She was a beauty queen, and she worked at an assisted living facility.

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That is right. All of that is right. And also the fact that the family had to wait for two weeks to get some sort of answer as to what might have happened to her, and that is not quite clear just yet.

And, Fred, Philadelphia authorities say they want to give the Medical Examiner's Office time to conduct their investigation and determine if the human remains found this weekend are those of the woman they have been looking for over the last two weeks.

Twenty-three-year-old Kada Scott was last seen at her workplace on the night of October 4. The Philadelphia Police Department is leading the investigation into her disappearance with the assistance of the FBI's Violent Crime Task Force.

Twenty-one-year-old Keon King was arrested Tuesday night. Prosecutors say investigators believe he was the last person to be in contact with Scott before she went missing. He has been charged with her kidnapping and also faces a charge of recklessly endangering another person and criminal use of a communication facility, meaning his phone and the disappearance of Scott.

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Prosecutors say he had previously been arrested this year for allegedly kidnapping another woman. Philadelphia Police say they started searching again for the body of Scott, Saturday morning after receiving a very specific tip from an anonymous source, leading them to a wooded area behind an abandoned school in Philadelphia's Germantown neighborhood, where they found a shallow grave.

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JOHN STANFORD, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER, PHILADELPHIA POLICE DEPARTMENT: After being able to remove some of the debris back there, they were able to locate the body of a human being. All indications at this point is that it is a female. We are not going to confirm at this point that it is Miss Kada Scott, because that has to be done by the Medical Examiner's Office.

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ROMO: Deputy Commissioner Stanford added that he is still asking the public for more information on this case. In a statement published Saturday, Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker expressed her condolences to the family, adding that "... the City of Philadelphia is here to support them in any way that we can and will continue to stay by their side."

Prosecutors in the case say they learned King, the suspect, had previously been accused of kidnapping a woman in front of her house earlier this year, assaulting her and eventually letting her out of the car, which led to charges of strangulation and kidnapping that were later withdrawn because a witness failed to appear in court. Prosecutors say they've refiled those charges, and King is expected to face preliminary hearings in both kidnapping cases in the coming months.

Before her disappearance, Scott was in contact with King, who met with her shortly after she left her workplace, according to police, citing video and digital evidence gathered by investigators.

In other words, they have him -- on video surveillance video meeting with her that night that she disappeared.

WHITFIELD: With interaction. Okay. All right, very sad. All right, Rafael Romo, thank you so much. Bring us more as you get it.

ROMO: Of course.

WHITFIELD: All right, and we are continuing to follow breaking news out of Paris. The Louvre Museum robbed, priceless jewels stolen by thieves in a brazen heist. I will speak to the former head of the FBI's Art Crime Team on how investigators are working to track down the suspects.

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WHITFIELD: All right, we are following breaking news out of France.

The Paris prosecutor tells -- a Paris prosecutor tells Reuters that a total of nine items were targeted by the thieves. Eight were actually stolen from The Louvre in broad daylight.

French Police can be seen outside The Louvre pulling a motorbike helmet in fact, from under that lift truck that the robbers apparently used in getting into a second floor window, breaking through it and then getting -- retrieving items that they stole and then using that truck lift to actually get the stuff out. And then the robbers got away on motorbike. But you see right there, they're now retrieving a helmet that was left behind.

I want to bring in former head of the FBI's Art Crime Team, Tim Carpenter. He is also the author of the book "The Grave Robber."

Tim, great to see you.

So those pictures revealing kind of the investigation, the crime scene -- part of the crime scene, pretty revealing and interesting that, you know, a helmet might be left behind. So there you go with potentially some DNA evidence, but apparently what we know now, investigators say it took these robbers only seven minutes to get away with these, you know, prized jewels. So what are you assessing here? Because we are talking about The Louvre.

I mean, it is the most visited and the largest art museum in the world, and it is huge. It is some 780,000 square feet. There are some 38,000 prized objects that are inside. But then these robbers found a gap. They found a porous area in which to get in. So where do you take the investigation from here?

TIM CARPENTER, FORMER HEAD OF THE FBI'S ART CRIME TEAM: Well, thank you for having me on, Fredricka. And you're right on all points. Clearly, this group of criminals has been studying The Louvre for some time, right? They had a good plan, and they executed that plan. They did find that one vulnerability.

Look, as you say, The Louvre is the largest, most visited museum in the world. But it is not that different from other museums where it still has vulnerabilities. Right?

Museums, by their nature, by the fact that their mission is to invite the public in. Right? They want to be open and inviting. And yet, house billions of dollars in art and cultural heritage collections, so it is really a difficult task and no museum can be 100 percent foolproof.

So I think local investigators are going to, you know, they're going to do a great job. They're going to be looking, as you suggested, they're going to look at forensic evidence that is on scene. They are going to be pulling all CCTV camera footage they can from the area, but they're also going to want to spend some time talking to folks within the museum looking at patterns like who has been in the museum in recent days. What was out of place? Who has been in there particularly, you know, potentially casing the museum in that gallery space?

[15:35:01]

And then they're going to turn to the public for help.

WHITFIELD: Interesting. And then, of course, they're going to be using the technology, right, to see if there is anything revealing in it.

CARPENTER: That's right.

WHITFIELD: CCTV cameras, obviously there would be cameras everywhere in and around The Louvre, but I wonder if that is you know, enough, because now at least investigators are revealing that there were some eight items or so that were stolen. They've shown us the picture of the one crown that was left behind. It was dropped, apparently.

But what other kind of tools might be necessary to kind of crack the case? And then I spoke with an expert earlier who said, with jewels, things you can, you know, stick in your pocket in little pouches take out, which is what they've done. In an hour, they can be transformed, they can be cut up, so they may be hard to trace.

So the focus, I guess, is really finding the suspects.

CARPENTER: Yes, that is really the risk, particularly in the theft case. Right? The very first objective in a case of a theft case is generally going to be the safe recovery of the artwork. Right? Which really should be the focus of the local police here -- it is the safe recovery of the artwork. They will conduct a full scope criminal investigation and hold those responsible accountable.

But their goal at this point will be to safely recover those valuable pieces that were taken. There are some challenges, right? Traditional art that's stolen, it is kind of hard to move that into the market stream because it is well-known. When we see cases like this where gemstones, jewels, precious metals are taken, there is a risk for those objects to be melted down or to carved up and sold off individually.

My hope in this case is, though, that because of the nature of these items, that they're part of the Crown Jewel Collection, that the thieves will want to keep them intact to maximize their value.

WHITFIELD: So it seems every, you know, so often there is a big heist, you know, of a painting or in this case, like, of jewels. It does happen. And that thieves get caught doesn't stop the next ring or round of, you know, robbers to try something.

But is there something that's very compelling to you about this heist that speaks to whether it is the ingenuity or the boldness of robbers who are willing to grab things that are so high profile, take great risks, but at least for now, seem to get away with it.

CARPENTER: Yes, that's a great question. I think we've seen in recent years, right, a trend has emerged to where they are more frequently targeting gemstones and precious metals, as opposed to the more traditional cases that we worked historically, which were mostly fine art. Right? Two dimensional pieces, works on paper, those types of things.

But the trend has definitely shifted towards these precious metals and gemstones because they are easier to move into the market stream and can net more value to them. So I think we need just more effective collaboration between the museum industry and law enforcement.

You know, we see that across the board, but it is probably not effective enough. And it is what I'd like to see a little bit more is that collaboration between the two spaces.

WHITFIELD: And given the advancements, I wonder, in technology, you know, in crime fighting, do you think these robbers will be caught?

CARPENTER: I do. I am optimistic they will. You know, in my FBI career, we had long relationships with our partners within the French law enforcement community and they are really good at what they do and so I am very optimistic they're going to throw every resource they can at this case, and they'll have a successful recovery.

WHITFIELD: All right, Tim Carpenter, what a pleasure. Thanks so much.

CARPENTER: Thank you for having me.

WHITFIELD: All right, coming up, China has the largest Navy in the world, but the U.S. is hoping to catch up. The $150 billion bet that South Korea is taking to try to revive American shipbuilding.

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WHITFIELD: As Americans increasingly feel the pain caused by higher tariffs, President Trump is out today defending his use of them, warning the U.S. could struggle for years if the U.S. Supreme Court strikes them down. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We are building up something that's unbelievable, and a big part of that are the tariffs, because they don't want to have to pay the tariffs because it is so unsustainable that they come and build the pharmaceuticals and the chips and all of the things. They're coming into the United States and they're building them.

It is a miracle what is happening. We are building the greatest country in the world. Economically, greater than we've ever been before. But we do have a big decision and that decision is coming up in the Supreme Court.

And again, this is being fought by radical left lunatics that don't even know what they're doing, and people that represent foreign countries that have taken advantage of us for years.

You know, tariffs have been used against the United States for years and it would always bother me so much. I would look and I would see -- I would say how can they allow this to happen to our country? We lost 55 percent of our automobile business because of -- because of the fact we didn't use tariffs.

Had we used tariffs, we wouldn't have lost anything.

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WHITFIELD: The Chinese Navy is now the world's largest due to Beijing's ability to outbuild U.S. shipyards, but as Mike Valerio reports, the U.S. is playing catch up with China and getting some much needed help from a key ally in the region.

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MIKE VALERIO, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): From the moment you step inside this cathedral of cranes, the planet's biggest shipbuilding complex operated by H.D. Hyundai Heavy Industries in Ulsan, South Korea, and on nearby Geoje Island, a harbor where giants are born, run by the Hanwha Ocean, you get the feeling you're in a city of ships.

VALERIO (on camera): We're here at the world's largest shipyard, and it is wild. Colossal ships everywhere.

VALERIO (voice over): This single site builds about ten times as many large commercial ocean vessels as the United States builds in a single year.

And South Korea's President Lee Jae-Myung, says his country can help, "Make American shipbuilding great again." President Trump has taken notice.

TRUMP: They build them very well in South Korea. They're also thinking about coming to our country with some shipyards to start us on the process of building ships again. VALERIO (on camera): What we're looking at right now are about 20 vessels that are under construction all at the same time. Hyundai tells us this year, it's expected to deliver 50 ships, all from this colossal facility in Ulsan, South Korea.

VALERIO (voice over): Why it matters: China now builds warships at a pace the U.S. cannot match. It has a Navy that's larger, backed by a network of sprawling shipyards.

The U.S. has just four shipyards left, down from 11 after World War II. Shipyards back in the U.S. are jammed: too few docks, too little capacity. So now, the U.S. Navy is sending some of its ships here to South Korea for essential repairs.

VALERIO (on camera): What's the most difficult part of all of this?

JEON YU-SU, GENERAL MANAGER, HANWHA OCEAN: The propeller, propeller propulsion system.

VALERIO (voice over): This is the third Navy cargo ship Hanwha has repaired, the USNS Charles Drew. H.D. Hyundai just started work on another Navy ship a few weeks ago.

Danny Beeler is the principal engineer on the Charles Drew.

DANNY BEELER, PRINCIPAL ENGINEER, USNS CHARLES DREW: Me as the person that's worried about all the maintenance on the ship and fixing things, I can get a lot more done in a shorter time period in a shipyard like this, as opposed to one back home.

VALERIO (voice over): The before and after difference: rust to renewal. It's work to keep the U.S. fleet running overseas.

Analysts say South Korea's shipbuilders are known for finishing on time and on budget. One of their secrets: components from nearby supply chains.

LEE JIN, VICE PRESIDENT, H.D. HYUNDAI HEAVY INDUSTRIES: Here in Korea, we can get that in one day or one hour, maximum one weeks.

JEON YU-SU (through translator): Hanwha Ocean also has a supply chain established within 50 kilometers of the shipyard, which enables us to get necessary material or manpower from our established relations with companies to quickly repair a ship.

VALERIO (voice over): A next step in the partnership could be South Korea building, not just repairing U.S. Navy ships. But U.S. law would need to change. Foreign companies are barred from constructing American warships.

The Navy Secretary says he is open to a change.

JOHN PHELAN, U.S. SECRETARY OF NAVY: In the short run, I have got to get hulls in the water, and so that means all options are open. So, we have to look at foreign and domestic.

VALERIO (voice over): Hanwha already runs a shipyard in Philadelphia and wants to grow.

Hyundai, too, is looking for a bigger U.S. foothold. The question now: could parts of America's warships be built here in South Korea as the U.S. tries to revive a once mighty shipbuilding industry with South Korean help?

VALERIO (on camera): What about construction of U.S. Navy ships? Is that the goal?

JEON YU-SU: Yes.

VALERIO (on camera): Yes.

VALERIO (voice over): Mike Valerio, CNN, Ulsan and Geoje, South Korea.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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WHITFIELD: All right, hang with me on this next segment. This may seem like you know something from a page of your favorite Jurassic Park movie, prehistoric animals, kind of getting a modern day lift or revival to be amongst us all again.

Well, today, two dire wolves are celebrating their first birthday. What's kind of incredible and scary, perhaps about these clones known as Romulus and Remus, is that they were born from a species of wolf that has been extinct for more than 12,000 years. They were brought to life using ancient DNA cloning techniques and modified genes from gray wolves.

The genetic engineering company, Colossal Biosciences is behind this creation, and CEO Ben Lamm is joining us right now.

So I hope you're not offended by me making the parallel to, like, Jurassic Park, because that's what it sounds like bringing stuff to life that was extinct. What's this all about?

BEN LAMM, CEO, COLOSSAL BIOSCIENCES: Yes, believe it or not, we may have heard that once or twice.

WHITFIELD: Okay, just checking.

LAMM: -- I think there has been once -- I don't think there has been one stage presentation where someone hasn't cued the music right, or made or sent us crazy memes of, like, John Hammond, right? But fundamentally, you know, we are in a massive extinction crisis and so we thought that we would build this company called, Colossal, that we could build technologies to bring back extinct species, open source all of those technologies for conservation and help endangered species while doing it in a fun and educational way that would inspire the next generation and get them excited about science.

WHITFIELD: So how do you pick and choose which species to kind of bring back to life, or bring from extinction.

[15:55:03]

LAMM: Very carefully, right. So there are no dinosaurs currently on the roadmap. There is no DNA for dinosaurs. So that will either make you happy or make you sad, depending on where you fall in the Jurassic Park world. But we really try to think about what animals we can bring back. That one, it is possible. Two, there is an ecological impact. Three, there is a cultural and educational impact. Four, there is a conservation impact, and five, there is an opportunity that the greater public can benefit from the technologies that are developed in the path to de-extinction.

WHITFIELD: Okay, so these wolves then, they are not an exact match for their predecessors, but how close are they? And then I am going to ask you about these mice, because that's what we are looking at to.

LAMM: Oh, our wooly mice. It was kind of weird, we didn't think that Chip and Dale, two of our wooly mice that -- we named them Chip and Dale would break the internet, but those actually, if you're looking at the wooly mice, those are actually the, most genetically modified animals on the planet until we announced to the world the dire wolves and so the dire wolves were about 99.9 percent the same as dire wolves back from 12,500 years ago.

We took a 73,000-year-old skull and a 12,000-year-old tooth, did a full genetic makeup and understood the genes that really made a dire wolf, a dire wolf, and brought those back and engineered that into a donor gray wolf cell.

WHITFIELD: Wow. Okay, so now to the little mice that we are looking at.

LAMM: Yes, so the mice are amazing, right? And so what they were and one of the things the reason why I love the wooly mice project so much is we identified eight core genes that really made the mammoth, the mammoth in terms of its coat color, its coat density, and the coat texture and length. And we took those genes. And because there's about 200 million years of genetic distance between an elephant and a mouse, we didn't just stick mammoth genes in there.

We used A.I. in our computational analysis to understand what genes in the mouse equivalent could we edit to make a wooly mice so that we could test the edits that we are making for our mammoth we are working, and what I am really excited about with our wooly mouse project is we did it in one month, and all the mice that were born had exactly the coats that we predicted from our mammoth work. And most importantly, they were all healthy.

And so that was the thing that we were pretty excited about in our end to end pipeline working.

WHITFIELD: So where will they go? I mean, okay, so the dire wolves look amazing. These mice look amazing. And, you know, you say they're healthy, but then where will we see them or will they be released into the wild? Is that the purpose? Because you did talk about purpose being of the criteria. Then what's the next stage? What happens next?

LAMM: So you're not going to see a wooly mouse in a pet store near you? We are not going to rewild mice. I think the world has enough mice and rats problems, so we are not going to be doing that.

The dire wolves live on a 2,000-acre secure, expansive ecological preserve, so they live a seemingly wild life style today, and they have about ten health care professionals and animal welfare professionals with them at all times, kind of monitoring them. But what is great is they started off as like, you know, being bottle fed in kind of in a very human care environment. Now, they're actually hunting on their own, they are doing carcass feedings and they're behaving more and more like wolves, which is what we want for healthy animals.

Some of the animals that we will bring back, like the moa and the dodo and others, will actually be rewilded, meaning that we will put them back into the wild.

WHITFIELD: Really, the dodo bird?

LAMM: The dodo bird.

WHITFIELD: Like "Flintstones?" That's what is conjuring up for me.

LAMM: Yes, so we -- I mean, the dodo was much smaller than the moa, right? But the people of Mauritius are very, very excited about it. We are working with ecologists and conservationists to clear the land and make it make it ready for the reintroduction of the dodo. And in all the projects, we also work with federal governments, local governments and indigenous people groups because some of these animals we are working on actually have a spiritual connection to the people of that land, like the moa.

WHITFIELD: Okay. Oh, so fascinating. Ben Lamm, and really, for sure, Ben Lamm, I mean, I know you're all into the animals here. Its spelled Lamm, but that's a great coincidence.

LAMM: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: I love it. All right, thanks so much for being with us. Appreciate it.

All right, tonight, discover of the breads that bond Marseille on a new episode of the CNN Original Series, "Tony Shalhoub: Breaking Bread." Here is a preview

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How are you, Tony?

TONY SHALHOUB, "TONY SHALHOUB: BREAKING BREAD": Fine.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fine! I have -- anybody -- look.

SHALHOUB: Oh, my! I thought you're not supposed to touch them with your hand. You're tough.

SHALHOUB (voice over): Sea anemones have a stinging toxin that they use to trap small fish. So before cooking, they must be soaked in vinegar to neutralize the poison. But the stinging doesn't seem to bother Aqua-Man here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look, this one.

SHALHOUB: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is not good.

SHALHOUB: You are brave. Courageous.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just my walks. You are rather courage to eat this?

SHALHOUB: Yes.

SHALHOUB (voice over): Fabian knows fish. But to take the restaurant to the next level. He partnered with Chef Celine Bonlieu (ph), a Marseille native whose culinary identity is deeply rooted in the local fishing and restaurant scene.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are talking about you, Celine.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Celine.

CELINE BONLIEU, CHEF: Hello.

(CELINE BONLIEU speaking in foreign language.)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sea anemone.

SHALHOUB: Anemone.

BONLIEU: Anemone.

SHALHOUB (voice over): Celine's recipe for cooking sea anemones is a simple one. After soaking in vinegar, they're coated in flour and then flash fried.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Celine is famous for her bene anemone in Marseille. People come here for this anemone.

SHALHOUB: Just for this.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They know they want them.

SHALHOUB: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

SHALHOUB (voice over): Okay. I guess that's enough stalling.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now is the time for it.

SHALHOUB: Now is the time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You take everything ready. Everything.

SHALHOUB: All in one?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes! Everything in your mouth and you crunch.

SHALHOUB: Okay.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This one, huh? You take in your mouth and you crunch.

SHALHOUB: It is like a true delicacy. It is kind of like the oyster- ish, earthy, salt water. I am doing it.

That was a big one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Yum! Okay, be sure to tune in to a new episode of "Tony Shalhoub: Breaking Bread" tonight, 9:00 P.M. Eastern and Pacific only on CNN.

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