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One World with Zain Asher
FARS: Iran Negotiator Says Unresolved Issues Remain; Israel Pushes Deeper Into Lebanon, North Of "Yellow Line"; U.K., Poland Sign Defense Treaty Against Russian Aggression; Record-Breaking Heat Scorches Europe Weeks Before Summer; Dead Sea Dying As Lake's water Level Drops; Ticket Prices Hit All-Time high As Knicks Head To NBA Finals; Aired 12-1p ET
Aired May 27, 2026 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have 401(ks) at their all- time high. Highest they've ever been. And it goes along with the stock market, which is the highest it's ever been.
Under my most favored nation agreement, this is something that I wish the media would talk about, because to me, it's one of the biggest things ever
to happen in our country. Certainly as to medical. Anything having to do with medical. Because drug prices were delivering record-setting discounts
on prescription drugs with price differences of 400, 500, and even 600 percent at the TrumpRx.gov.
We recently added nearly 1,000 low-cost generics to the website. So we have drugs down 400, 500, 600 percent. Now, you could say 80, 90, 70, 60, 50
percent if you want. There are two ways. It depends on the way you ask the question.
But a pill that would sell in Germany or, let's say, in London for $10. We're selling for here for $130. And I got the countries to all agree.
Otherwise, they would have had to pay big tariffs.
I don't want to go into it, but that's a very interesting discussion. As they said, vehemently no. And then when I said that's all right, we're
going to charge you 50 percent tariff on everything you sell into America. And they said, well, like we said, we'll say yes.
And every single country agreed. And every drug company agreed. So we have most favored nations. So we were paying the highest drug prices in the
world. Now we're paying the lowest drug prices in the world.
So that pill that I talked about would go from $10 to $20. The world is bigger than the U.S., hard to believe, but it's true.
So it's not like you cut it in the middle. They just had to go up a little bit, but a little bit is a double-leg of a price. So a little bit's a lot.
So the pill would go from $10 to $20. And we'd go from $130 to $20. Think of that. So we would get, if you remember, some of you are at the news
conference and my first term where I got the prices down, one-eighth of a percent, one-quarter one-eighth of a percent, my first term.
And I'm so proud of it, because prices, drug prices hadn't come down in 28 years. And I was the first one to do it. But now, I'm getting them down,
not one-eighth of a percent. I'm getting them down 400, 500, 600.
Or if you want to use it a different way, you could say 70 percent, 80 percent, 90 percent, 50 percent. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. And I
got that through -- well, everybody knew it was taking place, but we paid the highest prices anywhere in the world. And now, we're paying the lowest
prices anywhere in the world. And the press reviews us to write about it. And I think it's the biggest thing.
And for healthcare, you know, so much of it is prescription drug prices and drug prices. And with them coming down, the healthcare is going to come
down very substantially. We recently added nearly 1,000 low-cost generics, too, as I said.
And that's, you know, 1,000 drugs. And it's all on -- and this was not a -- this was not given by me. This was given by Dr. Oz and Bobby. And I, you
know, wasn't sure whether or not I loved the idea, but they said, we want to use Trump. TrumpRx.gov is what it is.
And it's the hottest site, I think, anywhere on the planet, from what I understand, Bobby, right? It's really great. People are calling up and
they're buying drugs for a fraction, for literally a fraction of the price. And it should be the biggest story.
And on that alone, we should win the midterms. On that alone, we should win the midterms. But the press doesn't talk about it. It's the biggest thing
to happen in the drug industry ever, maybe, ever. And the press doesn't even want to write stories about it.
We made the largest ever investment in U.S. military, $1 trillion. And we're asking, actually, for 1.5 trillion for the coming year. And we have
the strongest military anywhere in the world, as you know.
So what we did with Venezuela, that worked out very quickly. And we -- we're doing really equally as well with -- but again, people don't want to
write about it with Iran. Iran is very much intent. They want very much to make a deal. So far, they haven't gotten there. We're not satisfied with
it, but we will be. We will be. The data -- we'll have to just finish the job.
But their Navy is gone. As I've said a thousand times, their Navy is gone. Their Air Force is gone. Everything's gone and they're negotiating on
fumes, but we'll see what happens. Maybe we have to go back and finish it. Maybe we don't. Right now, I mean, you can speak to Steve Witkoff and
Jared. They're doing a good job.
But right now, I think it looks like they want to just make a deal. They want to -- they have -- I don't think they have a choice. They're just
going back to the Internet because they're getting clobbered their economies.
In free fall, they have 250 percent inflation. Their money has no value. Their whole economic system is broken down. They thought they were going to
outwit me, you know, we'll outwit him. He's got the midterms. I don't care about the midterms. Look what happened last night. That was the prelude to
the midterms.
[12:05:17]
People understand that. They know that very simple, Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. I'm doing that for the world. I'm not doing it just for us.
And we've had great support from other nations, by the way. We don't need it at all, but we've had great support from other nations. The problem is
you always get the support when you don't need it. When you need it, you don't get the support.
With Operation Epic Fury, our worries are ensuring that the world's number one state sponsor of terror never obtains a nuclear weapon, and they won't.
Under the leadership of Vice President J.D. Vance, very proud of this, the White House task force to eliminate fraud is waging war on waste, fraud,
theft and abuse, like nobody's ever seen before.
It looks like Elliot Ness. Do you ever see Elliot Ness? I'm telling you, the guys are up there at all separate casting, the standing band. What a
group of people. No, it looks like a movie. I'm going to make a movie out of it, I think.
And they're finding billions and billions and billions of dollars. And I just said, that's good. He said, you haven't seen anything yet. He just
said that. And, you know, he does really great. We'll have a balanced budget without having to do anything. This is the kind of money they stole.
They're crooks. They're thieves. And I hope that Todd is going to do a real job. These are crooked people. These are thieves. This isn't like a
mistake.
Just talking about one person. He got hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars, for securing one man, for taking care of one elderly man. He was a
service. He got paid millions of dollars for taking care of one man. Total crook. They're all crooks.
The Somalians are. What they've done to Minnesota, the Somalians, crooked as hell. Ilhan Omar, crooked as hell. They're all crooks. And we got them.
We got them. Now, we're putting the clamps on.
But boy, I said, that's an impressive group of guys that get behind you. I was watching that and a couple of very strong women, too. But I was
watching that last night. I said, I'm proud of you guys.
In two months, we've exposed tens of billions of dollars of defrauded taxpayer money, prosecuted numerous fraudsters. Todd. And stopped billions
of suspicious payments. Very suspicious.
Oh, you haven't seen anything yet. What do you see? I'm getting reports from Todd, from J.D. I've never seen anything like it. The kind of -- just
hundreds of billions of dollars was stolen. And no other administration would do what we're doing. Just let it go. Everybody was getting rich.
And I think we have a chance to save Social Security without doing anything to it by just the -- the numbers of fraudulent people on Social Security.
People that are 115 years old, 125 years old, getting payments. It's funny.
I said, no, do those payments get turned back? No, they accept them. Well, somebody -- somebody's getting the payment. It's not a person that's 125
years old, but that's the least of it. The numbers that we're finding out, we have great people at Social Security.
We're going to make our Social Security so strong, so -- so good that you never see anything like it. We're going to protect.
I said, right from the beginning, we're going to protect our people in social security. If the Democrats ever got in, you wouldn't have said,
Social Security would be bankrupt. People wouldn't be getting anything.
Last week, they took down two of the largest Medicaid fraud cases in Minnesota history, as well as the largest autism fraud case.
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BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN ANCHOR: All right. We've been listening to the president go over a number of policy issues, as he begins his cabinet
meeting, the first in two months. I'm talking about both domestic issues and international, specifically the war in Iran.
And on that, I want to bring in CNN's Matthew Chance, who's joining us live from London.
The president, once again, reiterating that he is in no rush for a deal, despite what he says reports suggesting that he's concerned about the
midterms. He pointed to the primary win last night in Texas and a number of other wins after he's endorsed candidates saying, he's not concerned at all
about the midterms, saying maybe we have a deal, maybe we don't. He believes Iran is intent on a deal.
And this has sort of turned into a war on words because, of course, Iranian state media and their officials are preempting the president's announcement
now by suggesting that any success the president may be touting is just that, is just words and language.
Just talk to us about what stood out to you from what we heard from the president and what we heard on Iranian state media.
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Well, it is, you're right, I think, turned into very much a war of words with both sides
trying to spin these negotiations that have been ongoing as something that are going to result in their favor.
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We had earlier today, Iranian state television, basically list the terms of the memorandum of understanding, or at least a version of the memorandum of
understanding that is currently under negotiation. And it was, you know, kind of all essentially in Iran's favor talking about how the U.S. would
agree to withdraw its forces from the vicinity of Iran.
It would lift the blockade against ships running through the strategic Strait of Hormuz. Iran would then sort of restore the flow of shipping
through that strategic waterway to pre-war levels over the course of a month and manage the -- the strait along with Iran in a way that it didn't
manage that waterway before.
Nothing was mentioned, of course, about the real key issues in this conflict particularly uranium enrichment, Iran's controversial nuclear
program, Lebanon and the ongoing conflict there, Iran's ballistic missile capability which was, you know, at the center of the -- the rationale that
was set out by Washington for going towards to war Iran in the first place.
President Trump there in that cabinet meeting, you know, basically saying it's Iran, and I'm paraphrasing him here, but he's saying, you know, it's
Iran that needs to deal more than -- more than the United States does.
Iran separately has just released a report on its FARS news agency, which is official news agency in Iran, saying that in the coming hours, President
Trump may unilaterally announce an agreement between Iran and the United States has been finalized, by saying this would be a way to exert pressure
but there are still unresolved issues between the two sides.
And so, look, the negotiations are continuing. Both sides are trying to spin these negotiations as -- turning out in their favor, but at the
moment, there's no agreement. And -- and there's no agreement until a final agreement is done, of course, and so we're watching carefully to see what
happens.
GOLODRYGA: Yes. And the President saying, the U.S. has not yet satisfied on the deal that Iran is willing to make. We'll continue to watch any
developments in this space.
Matthew Chance, thanks so much.
Let's bring in CNN's Oren Liebermann now from Jerusalem. And a lot of vagaries here, Oren, in terms of what was and what's and agreed to in this
MOU.
One of them being the state of the war in Lebanon and what limitations or not will be placed on Israel and its continued war with Hezbollah, which
has only expanded in the last 24 to 48 hours. Just give us the latest of what's happening there.
OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN JERUSALEM BUREAU CHIEF: Well, you're right to point out that we are very closely watching what's happening there, as -- as we
wait to see how this develops, especially in light of the U.S.-Iran negotiations.
And keep in mind, when we talk about Lebanon, when we talk about the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, this is all happening right
now, after President Donald Trump announced the 45-day extension to the ceasefire. But when you look at what's happening on the ground, there's --
there's hardly a ceasefire to talk about.
The U.S. had imposed restrictions on the Israeli military and on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel is not allowed to strike Beirut or
other parts of northern or central Lebanon. Netanyahu himself has come under domestic pressure to buck that restriction from the United States and
carry out water strikes because of the threat of Hezbollah drones and rockets that we have seen repeatedly.
But Israel has repeatedly carried out strikes in Southern Lebanon and now more and more in the Beqaa Valley which is sort of southern -- central
eastern Lebanon. And that speaks to the escalation here. Netanyahu ordered an intensification of strikes against Hezbollah, Iran's proxy there.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces who had been operating south of the so-called "Yellow Line," which is the northern border of the Israeli occupied area in
Lebanon. They're now pushing north of that and operating north of that, as they try to go after what they describe as -- as Hezbollah targets and
Hezbollah infrastructure sites.
Today, the Israeli military issued more evacuation warnings for the cities of Tyre and -- and Nabatieh, those are both north of the Israeli occupied
zone as they have announced waves of attacks in those cities and in other locations.
And -- and those strikes led to on Tuesday the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health saying that Israeli strikes had killed 31 people which is one of the
deadliest days since the ceasefire went into effect.
In the middle of all this, Trump is trying to, not only make some diplomatic progress between Israel and Lebanon, but this could very well
play into whether any U.S.-Iran ceasefire is -- is viable in the long-term, because Iran has previously demanded a ceasefire in Lebanon. That -- that
causes a problem for Netanyahu and that may well cause a problem for Trump.
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So as of right now, we're seeing this -- this ongoing escalation, not only Israeli strikes but continued Hezbollah drone attacks and rocket attacks on
southern Lebanon, Israeli troops there, and northern Israel, with little apparent appetite by either Israel or Hezbollah for an off-ramp at this
point.
GOLODRYGA: Right. And we may also be witnessing Prime Minister Netanyahu hedging his bets now before he gets any specific. I don't know how else to
describe it, but marching orders, as President Trump says he'll do, as I say, with regards to continued attacks in Lebanon using this as an
opportunity to do just that.
Oren Liebermann, thank you so much.
Let's bring in Aaron David Miller. He's a former Middle East negotiator for the U.S. State Department and currently a senior fellow at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace. Welcome back to the program.
So, there we heard President once again describing the war, not as a war, but as a conflict, and saying that he's in no rush.
AARON DAVID MILLER, SENIOR FELLOW AT THE CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE: No sound.
GOLODRYGA: Can you hear me, Aaron? Let's take a moment to reconnect with Aaron. We're going to take a quick break and come right back.
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GOLODRYGA: All right. I think we've reconnected now with Aaron David Miller. Aaron, I want to bring you back in as we are continuing to monitor
this cabinet meeting with the president.
Let me ask you to -- to weigh in to what the president said at the top there regarding the war in Iran, which he continues to describe as a
conflict. He says that despite reporting, he's in no rush or feels no pressure to bring this war to an end. With the midterms approaching his
poll numbers, sinking.
He says that it's Iran that is intent on making a deal. And that the U.S. currently isn't satisfied with where negotiations stand, but he does
believe they will ultimately end up with some sort of deal, but says that the -- the military route is still very much a possibility.
Just give us your take on those three minutes or so that we heard from the president on this issue.
MILLER: Yes. I mean, I'll make two comments. And it's, Bianna, number one, having worked and voted for opponents and Democrats. It seems to me the
greatest constraint on the president is not the midterms. He could easily blame the Republican Party and -- and bad candidates. He's already said
that gas -- inflated gas prices don't -- doesn't bother him.
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The greatest constraint in my view, and the reason that I think when he says that I'm not in a hurry, I think I take him as it were, because in the
face of the greatest and greatest foreign policy crisis of his presidency, a crisis that will define his legacy as president.
He stands to be portrayed and to be seen as having lost and has having gotten a bad deal. And I think that more than anything else is what weighs
upon his conception of time.
As far as the Iranians are concerned, I -- I think neither Trump nor the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the guys who are running this regime who
control the money, the guns, the information, and the oil. I think they don't want to go back to February 28. They don't want to go back to the six
weeks between February 28 and the first ceasefire April 7.
Yes, I think they would like to come to an agreement. The problem is on the two core issues, reopening the straits on terms that the U.S. can -- Trump
can live with. And number two, what to do about Iran's nuclear infrastructure.
The enrichment piece is only part of it. They have 11 tons of highly enriched uranium at varying levels scattered throughout the country in
addition to the 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium.
Those two issues seem to me to favor an Iranian endgame, or at least that's the way the Iranians are playing it. And I think there's a legitimate
question as to whether or not if you've got to a negotiating table, and we're willing to spend the weeks, months required to actually get, forget a
deal. I hate that word. It's an agreement that will endure it. If you want that, then you're in for some very tough negotiation.
GOLODRYGA: You mentioned that the president, what he fears more than the midterms is a perception that -- that he negotiated a bad deal, perhaps one
even worse than his predecessor or the one that -- that his previous predecessor from his first term, President Obama, and breaking up and
leaving the JCPOA.
It's notable that that perception and those warnings are coming not from Democrats, but from members of his own party who were very vocal, over the
weekend, as some of the details were emerging about this potential MOU that -- that was close to being announced, and the president seemed to back off.
So now that he has, what are the options that he has available for him? He can go back to fighting. The military assets are still there or he can
maintain the blockade. Why not do that, Aaron?
MILLER: I mean, I think that may be the default position with additional strikes against Iranian targets. Yes, you can go back to kinetics. I don't
think kinetics or the blockade, though, Bianna, will fundamentally change the calculation of the regime.
For Donald Trump, I'll come back to the issue of what matters to him. This is not an existential conflict. This isn't an existential conflict for the
vast majority of the American public, myself included.
For the guys running the railroad in Tehran, it is in fact an existential conflict. Trump opened it up with a war of choice, and he now confronts the
real prospect of agreeing to a, quote, piece of necessity.
And he's going to be judged on whether or not the straights can be reopened as they were February 28. I think that ship is sailed. I think he may have
to accept some sort of constraint, not a toll, maybe some sort of fun that could benefit, not just the Iranians, but the Saudis and the Qataris and
the Emiratis who have witnessed a fair amount of destruction.
And a nuclear issue, yes, he may get the possibility of a moratorium, but it is not going to allow any of us to sleep any easier, that this regime
will not continue its efforts to basically become a latent nuclear weapons state that is they have all the elements required to make a weapon, but not
making a decision to do so.
So all these -- all of these options, the blockade, kinetic negotiations, they're all available. But unless he's prepared to meet some of Iranian --
that's what a negotiation is all about after all, right? Both sides need to walk away believing they won.
Trump wants a "I win, you lose" situation. And with these guys running this place in Tehran, not going to get that.
GOLODRYGA: How stable is the current regime in your view, these guys, as you know? Because there is reporting that another round of assassinations
was also a possibility for the president as he was growing more and more frustrated about the stall that the talks had taken over the last few
weeks.
So, what is the status there?
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MILLER: You know, it's hard. And I don't -- I'm not an Iran expert. I don't play one on T.V. I think even those -- those folks who do follow the
granular on this would probably tell you that the Iranians have built a regime that's labored with some measure of depth.
I mean, after all, they eliminated the Israelis and the -- and the Americans eliminate, eliminated Ali Khamenei, which frankly might be the
most transformative piece of this entire operation.
Because Iran, however it's put together again, will not be the Iran of Ali Khamenei, who ruled and was responsible for death to Israel, death to the
U.S., the repression of its own people.
I -- I just think that, again, who controls Iran depends on who controls the money, who controls the guns, who controls the information, and who
controls the oil. And there is not a single shred of empirical evidence to suggest that the streets, the heroic, courageous Iranian public who are now
more concerned right now about their own safety and well-being.
There's no evidence to suggest that you have an alternative to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or that you're faced with serious demonstrations
and protests where part of the Iranian security establishment refuses to fire on the ground.
I think we're nowhere near that. So if I measure this within what, a realistic period of time between now and what, the end of the year, I
suspect that this regime will continue to maintain a fair amount of cohesion, even though its decision-making has been, I -- I think,
devastated to a large degree and decentralized.
I'd worry more frankly, and again, I'll say it again, Bianna, worked and voted for Republicans and Democrats. The decision-making, frankly, on our
side is the one that is less strategic than the decision-making that's going on, on the part of the -- this brutal repressive authoritarian regime
in Iran.
GOLODRYGA: Yes. Who continue to brutalize and repress their own people, executing them as well throughout these last few months.
Aaron David Miller, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.
MILLER: Thanks, Bianna.
GOLODRYGA: Well, a new cybersecurity warning from the U.K. A senior British intelligence official says the U.K. and its allies, risk losing a conflict
in cyberspace against adversaries such as Russia. And she's accusing Moscow of stealing technology and plotting assassinations.
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ANNE KEAST-BUTLER, DIRECTOR, GOVERNMENT COMMUNICATIONS HEADQUARTERS: One example is the gray zone between peace and war, where Russia is scaling up
its daily hybrid activity against the U.K. and Europe, stretching from the seabed to cyberspace, relentlessly targeting critical infrastructure,
democratic processes, supply chains, and public trust.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: A short time ago, Britain and Poland signed a new treaty to bolster their cooperation against increasing Russian threats.
CNN Sebastian Shukla has the details.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SEBASTIAN SHUKLA, CNN PRODUCER: What we're seeing from this treaty is that it's really designed to deepen the cooperation agreements in the military,
defense, and security sectors between Warsaw and London.
What that means is that the two nations will be able to share their human intelligence, their expertise, to be able to develop things like new
weapons systems, and also looking at things like aerial, unmanned aerial vehicles, drones, and looking at defense systems, as well, air defense
systems.
This is not the new -- this is not a new treaty and certainly not something that the U.K. is coming to this from afresh. We know that the U.K., and
we've seen here in Germany and in France, that the U.K. has signed very similar defense and cooperation agreements.
And the point of them is to be able to, 10 years on from Brexit, is to try to re-establish the U.K.'s connections and partnerships on the European
continent. But also, it's important to remember the context of which the U.K. and Europe, as a whole, is facing at the moment with an increasingly
retrenchment we're seeing from the U.S. administration.
The impetus is on European allies and European nations to step up in their own defense, to be able to stand up on their own two feet and not to rely
on Washington always for support.
So agreements like these are becoming more prevalent, particularly from London, but I also know between other European nations, too. There are such
agreements between Berlin and Warsaw and -- and Paris and Berlin, all of them -- all of them are taking place. They're becoming almost a spider's
web of connections.
And this latest agreement is supposed to be able to also show that the U.K. is taking adherence to what Donald Trump has said and is really standing up
for itself.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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GOLODRYGA: Our thanks to Sebastian Shukla for that report.
Still to come for us, concerning images coming out of a northern region in Mexico. Well, details ahead on this massive wedge tornado.
Plus, Europe swelters again under extreme temperatures as a heat dome settles in. We're live from Spain with the latest. That's ahead.
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GOLODRYGA: Caught on video, a massive tornado crossing through northern Mexico on Tuesday. This wedge tornado appears to have tracked through a
sparsely populated area. And so far, no major injuries or structural damage have been reported.
Well, extreme heat is tightening its grip across much of Europe and it's only May. Temperature records are being smashed across several countries as
a powerful heat dome traps in hot air. Scorching weather is blamed for several heat related deaths in France.
CNN's Pau Mosquera joins us from Madrid, which is also grappling with the brutal temperatures. Pau, you were in a park yesterday. Looks like you're
seeking some shade on a sidewalk today. Have things improved at all or no?
PAU MOSQUERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Not at all, Bianna. I'm afraid that we just have changed the landscape. We are not at Retiro Park. Right now, we
are at Gran Via. This huge avenue that is located downtown Madrid, but the situation, it is similar.
Because for a third day in a row here in Madrid, the mercury has climbed above the 30 degrees Celsius. Right now, for example, the thermometers are
marking 34 degrees Celsius, which is around 93 degrees Fahrenheit.
And this is why I do just highlight it. We decided to walk by the shaded part of the street, which seems to be the smartest option having in mind
that we are in the middle of a heat wave. And this is what most of the people visiting and locals are doing just like me, choosing this part of
the street or even trying to seek for a nice clean place to get something to help to cool down.
[12:35:11]
Now, until when are we going to have this situation? In the case of Spain, the Spanish weather agency said that we can expect these temperatures to
continue until the middle of next week.
But there are other countries in Europe that are suffering a similar situation. It is a case, for example, of the United Kingdom, there, the Met
Office activated yesterday an Ember alert for much of the southwest and the southeast.
These heat health alerts are going to be activated at least until tomorrow, Thursday. And the situation and the reason, as you know, is because the
mercury is going to climb, or is expected to climb, more well above the 30 degrees Celsius.
And in the case of there, of the United Kingdom, well, they say that these temperatures are going to last until the weekend and from the weekend and
on, even it's still not sure if they are expected to cool a little bit down, Bianna.
GOLODRYGA: Well, try to stay cool, Pau. Get inside and this too shall pass one day, my friend. Words of encouragement from across the pond. Thank you
so much.
Well, in the lowest place on Earth, there's an environmental crisis. The Dead Sea is dying. The lake's water level has plummeted in recent years, as
our Jeremy Diamond reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Jake Ben Zaken is one of the only people licensed to operate a boat on the Dead Sea. And for
the last 12 years, that's what he's done.
DIAMOND: So you know it well?
JAKE BEN ZAKEN, FOUNDER, SALTY LANDSCAPES: Yes. I got to see all the faces.
DIAMOND (voice-over): Giving him an unparalleled view of one of Earth's natural wonders, the fast-moving environmental disaster threatening its
existence.
BEN ZAKEN: So every year, we get about new 7.5 meters of new shoreline because the sea is dropping.
DIAMOND (voice-over): The Dead Sea is dying. Its surface area has shrunk by about one-third in the last 50 years, and its salt-encrusted shores now
stand as a testament to the rapid pace of change.
BEN ZAKEN: This is last year, two years ago. Every step, it's a year.
DIAMOND (voice-over): Each step shows how much the sea level has dropped from one year to the next, at a rate of about four feet per year, like
nothing else in the world.
Dr. Yael Kiro has been studying the Dead Sea for over a decade.
DIAMOND: There's no other place on Earth like the Dead Sea?
DR. YAEL KIRO, GEOCHEMIST, WEIZMANN INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE: No, no.
DIAMOND (voice-over): To understand why it is shrinking and what can be done about it.
KIRO: The main reason is because of the utilization of the water resources around the Dead Sea. This contributes around 60 percent of the drop. And
then there is the Dead Sea factories, both the Jordanian and the Israelis, that pump directly the brine and evaporate it in order to extract minerals.
And they contribute about 40 percent for the lake level drops.
DIAMOND (voice-over): Israel's Dead Sea Works and Jordan's Arab Potash Company pump tens of billions of gallons of water out of the Dead Sea each
year, evaporating much of that water to extract potash and magnesium, key fertilizer ingredients.
Some who want to save the Dead Sea have proposed building a pipeline and pumping water in from the Red Sea. Others advocate for replenishing the
Jordan River, allowing the water to flow naturally into the Dead Sea.
But while ideas abound, government action is still missing. The impact isn't just environmental, it's also financial. This graveyard of palm trees
and graffiti buildings was once a thriving beach resort. The road leading to it explains why it's been abandoned.
DIAMOND: Tourists used to take this road all the time to get to the Dead Sea, but now sinkholes like this one line its path, and the whole area has
been abandoned. And the concern is that more sinkholes will continue to happen as the Dead Sea drops, and tourism will be severely impacted.
DIAMOND (voice-over): These sinkholes are caused by an underground layer of salt that is now dissolving.
DIAMOND: This sinkhole is a direct result of the Dead Sea water levels dropping?
KIRO: Yes. Since the lake level started to drop, this salt layer, instead of being exposed to the Dead Sea brine, it is exposed to more fresh water,
and then eventually you get a collapse.
DIAMOND (voice-over): Aboard his boat, Ben Zaken says he sees new evidence of the Dead Sea's man-made decay every day, and the uncertainty it spells
for its future and his own.
DIAMOND: What do you call all of this? I mean, what we're witnessing, the - - the way in which it's sinking, how do you qualify all of it?
[12:40:01]
BEN ZAKEN: You can say an ecological disaster, you know, because it is. And it's also a demographical disaster, because it is. And it's also one of the
wonders of the world, because it is. You know, I qualify it as home.
DIAMOND (voice-over): Jeremy Diamond, CNN, the Dead Sea.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GOLODRYGA: Our thanks to Jeremy for that fascinating report.
Turning now to other breaking news, uplifting news right now. Five of the seven people trapped in a cave in Laos have been found alive.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(SHOUTING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: There you see emergency workers taking a moment to celebrate that good news, though the operation is not yet over.
Now the rescuers need to figure out how to get them out. The breakthrough came one week after the group went into a cave in search of gold. They
became trapped when heavy rain led to flash floods that blocked the exit. One diver says that they are working to bring supplies to the villagers,
which they'll need in order to regain strength for the journey out. This hour, the search continues for the final two people trapped in the cave.
We'll be right back with more.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GOLODRYGA: The benefits and drawbacks of artificial intelligence continue to be hotly debated. But in one of Africa's leading sectors, agriculture,
the use of A.I. is growing. We take a look in today's Africa's Insider.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AUDREY CHEBET, SENIOR RESEARCH ASSOCIATE, BRITER: Across Africa, we're seeing A.I. ton agriculture from a field that was, you know, reactive to
one that's proactive. And also in a system that's been historically fragmented, we're seeing A.I. help make decisions earlier, faster and also
with more precision.
We have, in South Africa, company like Aerobotics that uses drone and satellite imagery to look at crops on a farm and detect diseases early. And
sometimes they can go down to a single leaf and save basically a season's harvest.
In Ghana, farmers are able to get a digital mentor to help them assess what diseases are affecting their crops, and therefore, able to handle this
different climactic challenges.
[12:45:00]
ALLOYSIUS ATTAH, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER AND CO-FOUNDER, FARMERLINE: We built a solution called Dali A.I. It's an A.I. agronomist that speaks about
43 African languages. It has ability to send messages to farmers. It has ability to receive messages from farmers and answer questions in a native
language of farmers using voice.
So, a rural farmer that is in a rural village without internet access using a feature phone can place a phone call like a 911 for farmers and get
access to information about the weather, access to how to plant and just -- and just use that information.
The original intention for that -- for that is to also become a call center agent and realize very quickly that if a person calls our A.I. transcribe
that like, you know, to English then goes to LLM, pulls back their answer and then translates back to English and then to local language, the latency
is just like 10 to 30 seconds.
So we know very quickly that that's not going to work for that use case. So, like we know that the A.I. is in today's great for -- for being a
translator versus being a call center agent, right?
So for us, it's just like knowing the limitations and embracing them and also being very transparent about the people that we are working with as
well about the -- the -- the strength, but also the limitations of the -- of -- of -- of the system.
The other companies like in the Ghana Natural Language Project, there's Lelapa A.I. in South Africa. They -- like those guys did, they -- they were
doing cool research on A.I. before it became cool. We took a lot of inspiration from them. We worked with some of them as well. Those are
pioneers in the space so we stand on their shoulders, their research.
Because the way we think of language is not -- is not actually going to be a mode, but it's going to take collaboration for us. You reach the 7,000
languages that are spoken in Africa by a million people. So it's going to take all of us working together.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GOLODRYGA: Fortune has just released its list of the 100 most powerful women in business. The list spans 94 companies and includes executives from
U.S. and overseas.
Number one is Jane Fraser, the CEO of Citigroup, the first woman to run a major Wall Street bank. Earlier this month, she was one of just two female
executives to join President Trump on his trip to China.
In the number two spot is Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors. In 2014, she was the first woman to take charge of one of America's big three
automakers.
Fortune's editor-in-chief spoke to our colleagues on CNN about how they made their picks and how women in leadership positions are having a global
impact.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[12:50:02]
ALYSON SHONTELL, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF AND CHIEF CONTENT OFFICER, FORTUNE: We start with a quantified list. And that basically --
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: I would expect nothing less from Fortunate.
SHONTELL: Yes, yes. I mean, that's not like, hey, I think this person is obviously good. It's really the size of the P&L and the size of the team
that they oversee and also where they are in the trajectory of their career.
Is this a person on the rise? Are they mid-career and about to break through? Could they be another even bigger job on the horizon? Where are
they in the trajectory? But it really comes down to the size and scope of their role and their influence externally outside of the company as well,
we take into account.
BOLDUAN: Talk to me about how I quoted you off top and how it really is a global list. Yes, the United States is most of the executives. But what
about how global it is this time?
SHONTELL: Yes. There's nine companies from China. There's nine from Europe. There's a bunch from Southeast Asia. There's some from the Middle East. So
really, we took a global perspective. We have editors all over the place. We have some in China, some in Southeast Asia, some in Europe.
And so we've got boots on the ground to be really assessing the rising power everywhere. And by the way, we also do the most powerful people list
and a lot of these women are on it. They're not just powerful women, they're powerful executives really getting measured results.
BOLDUAN: Who are you keeping your eye on? Who's new on the list that you were like, ah, here's one to watch?
SHONTELL: I mean, I think just a category to watch is the women in A.I. A lot of the CFOs who are in charge of all this capex spending we keep
hearing about that's really shaping the global economy is being managed by women.
There's Sarah Friar at OpenAI, she's on the list. She's their CFO. Daniela Amodei is the co-founder of Anthropic. Susan Li is the CFO of Meta and
she's managing all their capex.
So those women are really changing and shaping how we're all going to be -- how living our lives based on the investments they're making.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: Well, turning to sports, NBA ticket prices are shattering records as the New York Knicks heads to the finals for the first time since
1999.
Fans will be paying more than $3,400 per seat just to get in the door at Madison Square Garden for game three of the finals. That 672 higher than
the cheapest ticket sold for game three of the 2025 NBA finals.
CNN senior reporter Matt Egan is live in New York. So, is it just the Madison Square Garden premium that we're talking about here, Matt?
MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, Bianna, that's part of it. It's also the fact that as you mentioned, the Knicks haven't been in the NBA finals
since 1999. I mean, the last time they were in the finals, their current star point guard, Jalen Brunson, he was a toddler. Napster had just
launched and "The Sopranos" was wrapping up its first season on HBO.
So, it's been a bit. And look, the fan base is incredibly fired up. The Knicks are on fire and maybe the only thing hotter right now is, yes, those
tickets to see them at the garden in the NBA finals.
So, let's just say you want to just get in the door and you don't care where you sit. Well, the cheapest seats listed on TickPick are selling for
or listed for $3,500 apiece, $3,500, right? That is almost eight times more than the same game of last year's NBA finals in Indianapolis.
In fact, for $3,500, you could have attended all seven of last year's NBA finals games and still had $200 left over to spend on food and drinks.
Now, that's just the cheapest seats. For the average seats, you got to pay more. Average seats are selling, for game four of the NBA finals, for
$4,500 apiece. That would make it the most expensive NBA finals game on record, according to TickPick.
Now, I was outside the Garden yesterday and I asked some New York Knicks fans about these very high prices. And one fan I spoke to, he said he went
to last round's game, and he said that he spent about $500 a pop on tickets.
Check out his response when I told him how much it's going to cost him to get in the door to the finals.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RAY CUENCA, KNICKS FAN: Damn, that's crazy.
EGAN: To get in the door.
CUENCA: Yes. That's -- that's madness. I -- I'm definitely not going to go. As much as I love the Knicks, I -- I can't afford those prices.
SUZETTE MEADE, KNICKS FAN:: I think it's a once in a lifetime experience and sometimes you got to do a little bit more in order to make that happen.
So I would consider it. And I think that these days, entertainment, sports, all of that, it really -- it comes with a premium experience and premium
experiences come at premium price tags.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
EGAN: Now, speaking of premium experiences, let's say you want to sit near celebrity row at the Garden. There are a pair of near court side seats for
game six at the Garden for the NBA finals that are on SeatGeek, and they're listed for a quarter of a million dollars each, $253,000 to go see the
Knicks. And there's no guarantee they're going to win, of course. Just some context, that's about triple New York City's median household income.
So, I think that this reflects a few things. First off, as we mentioned, it's the fact that Knicks haven't been in the NBA finals this century. It
is also the Madison Square Garden effect. This is the one of the world's most iconic sports venues, if not the most iconic.
[12:55:07]
Michael Jordan famously called the Garden "The Mecca of Basketball." And then it's also the fact that there's just so many basketball and sports
fans who live in and around New York City, and some of them have deep pockets, right? They may work for big tech or big law or Wall Street or
they work in the music industry or Hollywood.
And so there's a lot of people who want to be there. The question though, Bianna, is whether or not it's worth these sky-high prices. We'll have to -
- to wait and see what the fans say. And a lot of it will depend, of course, on whether or not the Knicks end up winning the NBA Finals.
Back to you.
GOLODRYGA: Yes. There's always the option of prime viewing from the comfort of your own couch at home.
EGAN: Yes. That's -- that's where I'll be watching.
GOLODRYGA: Yes. You always get a perfect view from -- from -- from there, Matt Egan, it's not going to cost you more money either.
Matt Egan, thank you so much.
EGAN: Thanks, Bianna.
GOLODRYGA: All right. That does it for "One World" today. I'm Bianna Golodryga. Thanks for watching. "Amanpour" is up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[13:00:00]
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