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Former Hostages Fight For Release Of Remaining Hostages In Gaza; Israelis Grapple With Passover Celebrations With Hostages Still Being Held Captive By Hamas In Gaza; Trump Administration Fires Female Sr. Military Officer; Stephen A. Smith "Leaving All Doors Open" For Presidential Bid; Supreme Court Backs Trump On Fired Probationary Federal Employees. Aired 12:30-1p ET
Aired April 08, 2025 - 12:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[12:33:58]
DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: On October 7th, 2023, when Hamas terrorists waged the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust, Keith and Aviva Siegel were among the 251 people abducted, kidnapped from their home, taken into Gaza, and kept in underground tunnels. For 50 days, they were held captive together.
On the 51st day, Aviva was freed as part of the first hostage-for- prisoner deal. But Keith remained in captivity for a total of 484 days. He was finally freed on February 1st and quickly joined his wife to fight for the release of the remaining hostages who, as of yesterday, have been held by terrorists in Gaza for a year and a half.
Keith and Aviva Siegel join me now.
Thank you so much for being here. It's an honor to be able to talk to you. And Keith, I just want to start with you and ask you what you want the world to know about what you endured for so long.
[12:35:00]
KEITH SIEGEL, HELD HOSTAGE IN GAZA FOR 484 DAYS: Thank you very much for having us. It's a very, very valuable opportunity for me to share my experience in captivity. I was held for 484 days. I was held in horrendous conditions, in tunnels and in homes that are not suitable for people to live in.
Held under constant threat by terrorists, weapons always in sight, threatened to be killed, and starved, dehydrated. Sanitation was virtually non-existent, suffering day in and day out, and the uncertainty of not knowing when all of this will or even will ever come to an end.
BASH: When you were still in captivity, I know that you know your wife was out fighting for your release and the release of other remaining hostages. She was right here in the studio on December 9th, about four months ago. I want you to hear what she said to me then.
(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)
AVIVA SIEGEL, HELD HOSTAGE IN GAZA FOR 51 DAYS: My Keith is 65 years old, and he was treated in such a brutal way. And I watched that, and I was with Keith while I wasn't allowed to cry. The only thing that I could do is comfort Keith and tell him that I loved him by looking at him in the eyes.
We were tortured in any way that anybody can ever figure out. And it's the worst, the worst thing that any human being should go through, being underneath the ground in a tunnel and being felt like you forgot about. So I'm here screaming for the girls, I'm screaming here for Keith and all the hostages.
(END VIDEOCLIP)
BASH: She said that you -- that she was screaming for Keith and screaming for all the hostages. Did you know all along that Aviva was screaming for you?
K. SIEGEL: I did not know. I did not even know if Aviva made it back alive. I saw her release. I saw the mobs. I saw the violence. I saw the hostility. I saw them beating on the Red Cross vehicle that Aviva was taken into by Hamas.
I did not know how Aviva was doing. I did not know how my family was doing. I was constantly worried about their well-being, about their safety, about their health, how they were handling the situation.
I knew they were doing everything they could to get me back home. Together with that, I was very, very worried. And being totally disconnected and not being able to know how they were doing was very, very stressful for me.
I tried to do something conveying messages to them, like mentally I would talk to them every day and let them know that I'm OK, wanting to hear about their well-being. Being held in such horrendous conditions, I thought a lot, prepared myself for death pretty much daily.
Together with that, I had faith and I was very -- received a lot of strength knowing that my family and my friends were waiting for me. Being held in conditions that are very hard to survive in was something that I think about every day. I think about the remaining 59 hostages that are still held in Gaza.
I think about Matan Angrest. We spent time together in captivity. He was seriously injured on October the 7th. He has not received the medical attention that he needs.
Hamas published a video a few weeks ago and he looks like he has been through torture and battered. And this was verified by doctors that saw the video. I think about other hostages that I met when I was there. And they were still in captivity for so long. We need to get them home and I'm doing everything that I can to try to help get that done.
BASH: Let's talk about that. Aviva, I'll bring you in on this. The temporary ceasefire that allowed you to come out, the deal that is over. The Prime Minister Netanyahu announced an escalation in military presence in Gaza, vowed to increase pressure, military pressure until the remaining hostages come out.
[12:40:04]
Is that appropriate? Is that what you want? Both of you can answer that, as people who were held in Gaza as hostages?
A. SIEGEL: Keith and I, like I've been saying for a year and a half, we're peacemakers. We're against wars. We're against killing. But all we do know is that Gali and Ziv from my community, from Kibbutz Kfar Aza, 27 years old, they two -- both of them are there. They're twins and they belong to their parents. They need to get out of there.
Having Keith coming home and hearing the stories that he went through, knowing where he was because I was there, is too much for me and too much for Keith. We want them out. So I want to just ask for this opportunity that you gave me. I want to ask President Trump and Bibi Netanyahu to release them and let them go free before it's too late.
BASH: So, I mean, the obvious question is, is it up to them? It's obviously Hamas that has to do the deal. But your point, which I understand, is that you want to put pressure on them to put more pressure on Hamas to do a deal.
What is your message, Keith, to your prime minister and to your American citizen and to the American president?
K. SIEGEL: I, first of all, want to take advantage of the opportunity to say thank you to President Trump. I am profoundly grateful for his efforts to secure my release, to secure the other hostages that were released. I encourage him to continue his efforts to get negotiations set and reach a deal that will get all of the 59 hostages back.
I call upon Prime Minister Netanyahu to do as well, to really set high priority for this hostage crisis. We need to get the hostages back, the ones that are alive. There are 24 that are considered to be alive, thought to be alive.
There are a total of 59. We need to get the alive hostages back as soon as possible. They're in a life-threatening situation. We need to bring the deceased hostages back to burial so their families can grieve and put that behind them.
BASH: The Jewish holiday of Passover, Pesach, begins this weekend. This is the holiday that Jews commemorate the freedom from slavery in Egypt in ancient times. Rachel Goldberg-Polin was on Dan Senor's podcast, Call Me Back. And effectively, what she said is, we can't be commemorating the worst form of bondage in slavery because that's being experienced by Jews right now.
How are you going to commemorate this weekend?
A. SIEGEL: I just want to say that I'm the happiest person on earth to get Keith back and get his freedom back and my freedom in a way back, my family's. Watching my grandchildren just staring at Keith and want to sit next to him all the time, that's freedom.
But I want it for the rest of the families and for the rest of the hostages to come home and feel exactly like what I feel. Last Pesach, we were sure that Keith would come out and it seemed like there would be a deal. And it didn't happen.
And Pesach finished and we had matzah, and we just kept it for Keith because we said that when Keith comes home, we're going to have a big celebration of freedom and we're going to -- we're just going to have a holiday for him just like we wanted him to be with us and have Pesach with him no matter when he comes home.
So this time, Keith is with us and we're going to sit next to the table, the whole family, and feel the freedom and love Keith.
BASH: Amazing. Thank you both for coming on and it is really remarkable, both of you, but especially since you were there for 484 days, the fact that you came right out and you started advocating. You have not given yourself a moment. Your strength is beyond the pale. So thank you.
Thanks to you both.
A. SIEGEL: Thank you so much.
BASH: Thank you.
K. SIEGEL: Thank you very much.
A. SIEGEL: Thank you.
BASH: Thank you.
And coming up, after downplaying Harriet Tubman's role in the Underground Railroad on a National Park website, the Trump administration is making more changes. That's next.
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BASH: Topping our political radar, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired a senior U.S. military official to NATO. The Pentagon's reason? A, quote, "loss of confidence". But the Associated Press reports Shoshana Chatfield was on a list of military officers labeled as woke by the Conservative American Accountability Foundation.
Plus, Harriet Tubman is back on a webpage about the Underground Railroad. The National Park Service reversed course yesterday after news outlets reported that Tubman's image was minimized on the site amid a so-called anti-DEI push. Tubman was, of course, a hero who led scores of enslaved people to freedom during the Civil War.
And time to stop messing around, that's the message from outspoken ESPN host Stephen A. Smith as he teases a potential presidential run. Smith has become increasingly critical of Democrats in the wake of President Trump's victory.
[12:50:06]
And last night, posted in part, "Hate the thought of being a politician, but sick of this mess. So I'm officially leaving all doors open".
And we are following breaking news this hour. The Supreme Court upholds the firings of probationary federal workers. A closer look at the Americans losing their jobs, next.
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BASH: Back to our top story, the Supreme Court is siding with the Trump administration again, paving the way to allow the administration to fire thousands of probationary federal workers. I want to bring in CNN's Rene Marsh for a deeper look at who these workers are that we're talking about.
Rene?
RENE MARSH, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Dana, you know, as all of this plays out in the courts, these federal workers are -- who are at the center of all this are experiencing really an emotional whiplash.
[12:55:04]
You have one judge saying that they cannot be fired. And now the Supreme Court saying, actually, they can be fired. This is certainly a win for the Trump administration. But we must also point out that this has been a complicating factor, this back and forth on whether or not these probationary employees, 16,000 of them, can or cannot be fired.
Because keep in mind, many agencies right now are still in the midst of finalizing their reduction-enforced plan. So they need to know who is on the books, who is within their workforce, and have that stable number in order for them to be able to come up with this reduction- enforced plan, which is due to the Office of Personnel Management on April 14th.
But I have to say, Dana, you know, the probationary employees are just a slice of the more than 120,000 federal workers who have been terminated from these agencies. And I've been talking to these federal workers before the Trump administration started, in the early weeks of the Trump administration, and to now. And I will say their spirit has gone from a fighting spirit to a spirit of they're waving the red flag.
Many of them, they are tired. And so this back and forth that we're seeing in the courts of, they can be fired, they can't be fired, many of them are starting to say, I'm opting out. I'm starting to look for other positions outside of the federal workforce simply because of this instability, Dana.
BASH: Yes. You know, you've got to wave the red flag when you need a job and you need to put food on the table and to pay --
MARSH: Yes.
BASH: -- pay your mortgage.
Rene, thank you so much for that. Appreciate that reporting.
Thank you so much for watching Inside Politics today. CNN News Central starts after a break.
