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Trump Fires Justice Department Officials Who Prosecuted Him; Trump Plots Strategy With House GOP as He Readies New Orders; Chinese A.I. Advancement Sends U.S. Tech Stocks Plunging. Displaced Palestinians Making Emotional Return To Gaza; Survivors Mark 80 Years Since Auschwitz Liberation. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired January 27, 2025 - 18:00   ET

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

[18:00:00]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, breaking news, President Trump fires more than a dozen U.S. Justice Department officials who prosecuted him as he orders investigations at the prosecutors who tried cases against other January 6th defendants. Is this the beginning of the retribution he promised on the campaign trail?

Also breaking, Trump is hosting House Republicans at his Florida golf club as they strategize over his legislative agenda. New executive order is also on the way tonight with an expected ban on transgender troops and DEI programs in the U.S. military.

Plus, U.S. high tech stocks tumble after a bombshell announcement from a Chinese artificial intelligence company. Why the new model is extremely low price, price tag is sending shockwaves through Silicon Valley.

Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer. You're in The Situation Room.

And let's get straight to the breaking news from the U.S. Justice Department. A major shakeup underway as President Trump fires more than a dozen prosecutors who worked on criminal investigations into him.

Our Chief Legal Affairs Correspondent Paula Reid is on the story for us. Paula, this move from the Trump administration is not a total surprise.

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Not a surprise at all, Wolf, because President Trump has repeatedly vowed to seek retribution against those who investigated him once he returned to office. And today in a letter obtained by CNN, the acting attorney general wrote to these officials saying, quote, you played a significant role in prosecuting President Trump. The proper functioning of government critically depends on the trust superior officials place in their subordinates. Given your significant role in prosecuting the president, I do not believe that the leadership of the department can trust you to assist in implementing the president's agenda faithfully.

Now, we've learned that this has impacted more than a dozen officials, but, of course, the special counsel himself, Jack Smith, and many of his top prosecutors left the Justice Department before Trump returned to office.

BLITZER: And, Paula, the Trump administration also announced they are going to investigate the prosecutors in the January 6th cases, right?

REID: Yes, this is really significant because this is the first move the Trump Justice Department has made to look into what was the largest criminal investigation in the history of the Justice Department. Of course, related to January 6th. And we've learned that the interim U.S. attorney in Washington, Ed Martin, has launched an investigation into prosecutors who charged January 6th rioters with obstruction of justice. This is just one of the charges that was filed in a few 100 cases. But the Supreme Court ruled last year that this particular charge could not be used in most of the January 6th cases because it's not supposed to cover the kind of conduct that occurred that day. Instead it relates to preventing investigators from receiving evidence or documents.

Now, the Trump Justice Department is describing this not as an investigation but as a, quote, special project and they're asking attorneys to hand over documents, notes and emails. Now, one senior administration official tells me, quote, the prior office screwed up by filing hundreds of cases that ended up getting thrown out by the Supreme Court. It is worth getting to the bottom of poor decision- making.

But, of course, Wolf, there are concerns that this is all just part of a larger effort to undermine the legitimacy of all of the January 6th prosecutions, especially after President Trump faced significant criticism for pardoning so many people, just everyone involved in January 6th, except for 14 people who received commutations, including those who engaged in violence that day after he and his vice president has signaled that those individuals would not get pardons.

BLITZER: All right. Paula Reid, thank you very, very much.

I want to get some analysis right now from our legal and political experts, and, Laura Coates, let me start with you. The acting attorney general said these officials can't be, quote, trusted to implement Trump's agenda. Is this an appropriate use of presidential power?

LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: I don't believe so because, of course, the reason you have career officials in an instance is that you want to have people who are not going to be vulnerable to political persuasion. They are career, meaning that they serve not at the pleasure of the president, but because they are there throughout the different administrations, they're part of the institutional knowledge and base.

[18:05:07]

They're there to have the due process protections from a meritless firing, so they can speak their minds at issues that are important. And so if you take the tag you assume they can never be trustworthy, well, that is really the entire process of having a career prosecutor whose job it is to serve, it doesn't matter who is the president of the United States, but also they have protections for themselves. The whole premise of having the merit-based firing system is so that there's not an arbitrary or capricious or political reason to let them go.

BLITZER: Lulu Garcia-Navarro is with us as well. Lulu, what do you make of this move from the Trump Department of Justice?

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I think what we're seeing here is Trump attacking his own government and I think this is going to be problematic as we go forward. It is part of what he has promised. This is important to him because the Justice Department, he saw it as someone who -- an agency that targeted him. He felt, you know, that they were at the forefront of many of his legal problems. And so this is payback time, and I think that this is very clear. This is part of what he sees as retribution.

I think the bigger thing that I would say is, when he was campaigning, he told voters, I will be your retribution, and instead what we're seeing is retribution for his own sake, as opposed to for them.

BLITZER: You know, it's interesting Kristen Soltis Anderson, that Bondi, when she was being questioned to become the next attorney general of the United States, she specifically said that the Justice Department would not be focused on retribution. So, how do you square that with what's going on now?

KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I believe these moves were made by the acting attorney general, rather than Pam Bondi. So, it's possible that she gets into office, gets through confirmation, and things are a little bit different at that point. Right now, the folks who are running things are very loyal to what Trump talked about on the campaign trail, which was, he's talked about wanting to, quote/unquote, drain the swamp for a long time.

And in Trump's view, the swamp is not necessarily lobbyists on K Street or who many voters might think of as the swamp, but it also includes many of those career professionals Laura talked about that, in his view, there is a, quote/unquote, deep state, people who have worked in the government for years, if not decades, who are out to get him. And so this is just part of him trying to push back on what he thinks as an embedded force within the government that's trying to keep him from doing what he wants.

BLITZER: Alencia Johnson is with us as well. Alencia, what do you -- these latest round of firings that we're all learning about right now, as well as the firing of these inspectors general in various parts of the administration, is this what we're going to see more of during the second Trump administration?

ALENCIA JOHNSON, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Listen, I imagine we will. I mean, this is what we have seen in the first literally seven days and what all of us are here talking about is that this goes against the norm that there are career professionals that presidents trust to do independent investigations. And we've seen in previous administrations where presidents have had, you know, some members of the DOJ have investigations that concluded positions that they necessarily didn't agree with but they said this is the law, they understand the Constitution and we will move forward and allow for that to be.

Donald Trump said that there is no law in this country. He also doesn't seem to believe in the Constitution. And so it would be interesting to see how the Republican Party, if we think about the politics, will continue to run on being the party of law and order, and following the Constitution, if they continue to allow this to happen.

BLITZER: Let's see if that happens. Laura, the Trump administration has also launched a probe to investigate prosecutors who oversaw the criminal cases against the January 6th defendants. Is there any basis for this type of investigation?

COATES: There is an acute unfairness here. These prosecutors are, first of all, assigned cases. They are assigned cases, not coming up with and investigating on their own and saying, officers, go out and find the information. Cases are brought to them in terms of probable cause findings. They then prosecute with the grand jury and beyond. The person who signs off on everything is either the politically appointed U.S. attorney for that office or ultimately the attorney general of the United States, and certainly Jack Smith at Special Counsel. So, to punish for the official behavior of those prosecutors goes directly against the very statements you're saying in that letter, the Supreme Court talking about immunity for official acts of the president of the United States.

The very premise of that is, if you are engaged in your official duties, you ought not to be punished for the actions you take. It's not a personal vendetta, it's a prosecution. So, to go after them, and personally, and to fire them, and what appears to be that, more information, a meritless attempt to try to get retribution and payback, not prudence, this is going to have a huge ripple effect for morale. And also about career prosecutors, you're going to wonder, if I prosecute this case, am I going to lose my job and my livelihood? Not instead what you want them to think about, which is, do I have a case that I can prove beyond a reasonable doubt against somebody who is a rightful defendant in any context?

[18:10:01]

It won't just be about Trump, it'll be about every case they look at.

BLITZER: Good point. Lulu, let me play for you and for our viewers what Trump's nominee for attorney general, Pam Bondi, said back in 2023. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAM BONDI, FORMER FLORIDA ATTORNEY GENERAL: The Department of Justice, the prosecutors will be prosecuted, the bad ones. The investigators will be investigated because the deep state, last term for President Trump, they were hiding in the shadows, but now they have a spotlight on them and they can all be investigated and the house needs to be cleaned out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Lulu, is this what we are now seeing?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I think it's the start of what we're seeing. I think this is only the beginning. This is only day seven, I think. Or are we in day seven, month seven? It's getting a little confusing. But, you know, this is part of a project.

And, again, what we've seen in the run up to this are Republicans talking about this, as we saw Pam Bondi doing there, President Trump talking about this. This is not new. This was in Project 2025. This is all there. And the idea behind this is that they want to make a supine sort of government that will look at President Trump as the final authority in all different areas. And the Department of Justice, which has had a lot of independence traditionally, is now going to be a very different Department of Justice that we've seen before.

BLITZER: Kristen, is investigating the investigators the right move right now?

ANDERSON: I think investigating the investigators is really leaning into the incredible low trust that a lot of voters have in pretty much everything in Washington. I think it's notable that something like the Department of Justice is traditionally treated differently than other departments, a little more independent, less specifically at the prerogative of, or at the pleasure of the president.

But you have a lot of voters out there that sent Donald Trump to Washington thinking, I hate all of it, I think all of it's gross, look into all of it, throw them all out.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: But they've been telling people that for a long time, if you tell people not to trust people, not to trust institutions, then they will naturally not trust institutions.

ANDERSON: I don't think people's distrust of institutions is just a messaging problem. Now, it may be unfair to specific individuals who get caught up in this, and who are let go from their jobs, but, ultimately, we are in a moment where a lot of Americans think a lot of things are really broken, and it's what has created this permission for Donald Trump to go and do things that would have been considered jaw-dropping and unacceptable in other countries.

BLITZER: Do you think we could eventually see criminal charges against these prosecutors?

A. JOHNSON: Listen, I don't think anything is out of Donald Trump's reach, right? He will try to do all of it. And you do make a really good point about the messaging, whether or not he could actually provide criminal or instruct criminal charges, he can win on that messaging, and then that is a dangerous scenario that we are in, that literally, the law is not something that people have to abide by. And also, what do we say about people who take certain positions, particularly lawyers, and they're supposed to be independent, he's making people question that as well, this institution.

And that is a very big concern that we're not going to get through that type of belief in this country with just another election. That is within our culture now, and that's the deeper issue here.

BLITZER: Yes, we're about to see how all of this unfolds. All right, ladies, thank you very, very much.

And to our viewers, be sure to watch Laura's program later tonight, Laura Coates Live, 11:00 P.M. Eastern. We'll be watching Laura.

Just ahead, President Trump speaking to House Republicans as they try to move ahead to enact their ambitious agenda.

Plus, the U.S. Senate voting on another member of the president's cabinet just within the past few minutes, as senators prepare to question three of the most controversial nominees. We'll talk with South Dakota Republican Senator Mike Rounds. He's standing by live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:15:00]

BLITZER: There's more breaking news we're following. The U.S. Senate has just voted to confirm President Trump's nominee for treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, with 68 senators voting in favor, 29 voting against. Bessent will face pressure to address the federal debt limit and work on Trump's promise to enact tariffs.

Also breaking right now, President Trump is holding a strategy session with House Republicans at his Florida golf club as they plan to enact his legislative agenda, the president also preparing new executive orders, dramatically reshaping the U.S. military.

Our Chief Congressional Correspondent Manu Raju is joining us live from Doral, Florida, right now. Manu, the president just spoke. Give us the update.

MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, he's actually still speaking. Wolf's going to talk a little quieter because he's speaking right behind me.

But he laid out Wolf a number of his executive actions already took. He boasted about his election victory from November. He took a number of swipes at Joe Biden and he talked repeatedly about the issue of tariffs. That, of course, became very prominent over the weekend when he, along with the country of Colombia, got in a back and forth over Colombia's refusal initially to accept deported migrants from the United States, Colombians being sent to Colombia on U.S. military planes. Trump then threatened a trade war. They went back and forth. Ultimately, Colombia relented.

And just moments ago, he addressed that controversy and he warned other countries not to follow suit. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: As you saw yesterday, we've made it clear to every country that they will be taking back our people that we're sending out. The criminals, the illegal aliens coming from their countries, we're taking them back and they're going to take them back fast. And if they don't, they'll pay a very high economic price and we're going to immediately install massive tariffs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Now, one of the other things that they have to sort out in this meeting, Wolf, is how to actually move ahead with Donald Trump's agenda. There's so much they want to include into these pieces of legislation. And one of the big questions is how to sequence it and whether to tie everything into one bill or two bills, dealing with tax policy, dealing with immigration, dealing with energy, dealing with massive spending cuts.

[18:20:05]

Right now, Donald Trump gave virtually no clarity on how they should resolve this internal dispute between Republicans, particularly in the House and the Senate. He said, one bill, two bills, it doesn't really matter. Let's just get this done. And that's one of the big questions for the Republicans. Can they get this done? They're going to try to hash that out behind closed doors this week as they move back to Washington for next week. Wolf?

BLITZER: And, Manu, the House Speaker Johnson is also down in Doral where you are. What has he been saying?

RAJU: Yes, I had a chance to ask him about what Donald Trump said last week about the issue of aid to deal with California to rebuild in the aftermath of these destructive wildfires. Donald Trump suggested conditioning that aid to enact new voter I.D. laws. That, of course, is an issue that has badly divided the two parties for many, many years. I asked Johnson whether that would be a red line for Republicans. Will they insist on new voter I.D. laws in exchange for billions of dollars in aid to California?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): So, we've talked about conditioning the aid that will go there to policy changes. I think that is a common sense notion that is supported by the vast majority of the American people who do not want to subsidize crazy California leftist policies.

Voter I.D. is a matter that again comports with common sense that most American people see the value in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: So typically, disaster relief, Wolf, as you know, is done on a bipartisan basis with no strings attached. What the Republicans are suggesting is strings attached. That means it could be a huge fight in Congress to get aid that would be, of course, much badly needed by these communities hard hit by those wildfires, Wolf.

BLITZER: All right. Manu, thank you very much, Manu Raju in Doral, Florida for us.

I want to bring back our political experts, and Lula Garcia-Navarro, let me start with you. As you know, Trump is taking a bit of the victory lap right now after the country of Colombia backed down in the face of the tariff threat that he had issued. How big of a win is this for Trump?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: It's a win. There's no doubt. I mean, he basically faced down Colombia, which is an ally, which is a country that actually the United States has a trade surplus with, which is a country which has a very strong, strategic partnership in fighting the drug war. So, yay, victory, but it's a victory against an ally.

So, the message that he's definitely sending is one that he's going to play tough, but the person that he played tough with, quite frankly, wasn't really Vladimir Putin and Russia.

BLITZER: Good point. Alencia Johnson, does Colombia backing down show the effectiveness of these Trump tariff threats?

A. JOHNSON: I don't know if it fully shows the effectiveness to what Lulu was saying because of who the government of Colombia, who it is versus whether a Russia or some other country, but it does give us an insight into how Donald Trump plans to go about some of these terrorists, through this bullying of I'm going to impose tariffs if you don't give me what I want, and being what Donald Trump wants may not necessarily be as we know what is good for the American people.

And so this for him is a victory lap for him to go and show other countries, but it actually is very concerning for our diplomacy within some of our friends, right? Like you don't do this with your allies. You don't do this with your friends. But we saw this before he even became came into office, what he was talking about, the way he's talking about Canada and some of these other nations.

And so he has showing that he is going to govern with a very strong fist in ways that quite frankly we haven't seen before.

BLITZER: And, Kristen, we're also learning that Trump wants his team to dramatically increase these arrest quotas for migrants here in the United States. What does that signal to you?

ANDERSON: I mean it signals that he wants to be tough on immigration It signals he wants to be tough on any country that is doing things that he doesn't think is in America's interest. I mean, we've talked about say Colombia being an ally but they were turning away planes that were filled with people that Donald Trump and his military -- his government, military planes but filled with people that who are being rightfully deported. And so, you know, when our friends are not acting like our friends, Donald Trump has said, if you're not going to act like my friend, I'm not going to act like your friend either.

The problem he'll face, and what is going to be so interesting about what comes out of this meeting down in Doral, is this is a meeting that Congress -- Republicans in Congress have every year. They've been doing it for decades. They all get together. And at the start of a new Congress, they sort out what are we going to do, what's our strategy, what's our message. And tariffs are one of those issues that does still divide the Republican Party. And so while Republicans may be liking its use as a tool that you can use to extract things that you feel you should be getting from other countries, when it comes to the economic impact of tariffs, that is still very much up for debate and something that Republicans are not unified on.

BLITZER: You wanted to weigh in?

A. JOHNSON: Yes, I actually want to weigh in particularly on the immigration piece, and I think to the point you're making, these military planes, right? I think many nations would say, hold on, wait a minute, let me think about letting these military planes back in.

[18:25:02]

But this conversation around immigration, I do want actually Democrats to figure out how to go on the offense about immigration. We absolutely do need tougher immigration laws. However, the conversation that we are having and what I think might push people in the opposite direction of supporting Donald Trump is the inhumane way in which he is going about these deportations and the images that we are seeing.

So, this is a slippery slope. And if we're seeing this in the first seven days, I do think this is an opportunity for Democrats to have an offensive strategy and conversation around what immigration reform actually looks like in a humane way.

BLITZER: You know, it's interesting, Lulu, because Trump said he would focus on immigrants who commit crimes. Is that realistic if they are dramatically stepping up all of these arrests?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I mean, no, because if you're thinking about people who commit crimes, that is a finite number. There's not like an enormous amount of people who have committed crimes in the immigrant population who are easy to find and are deportable. You're talking about people who might be in jails. You're talking about people who have deportation orders and you might know where they are. But that's not a huge number of people.

And so you're going to see this list expanding very quickly to people who are not people who have committed crimes. And that is, of course, where the rubber meets the road because we've seen in the past, American people really don't like to see children taken away from parents. They don't like to see -- they're talking about going to hospitals, going to schools. I've talked to one undocumented immigrant that I know that was crying and weeping because she's worried about her child perhaps, you know, being taken out of school and shipped off and she might not know where he is.

So, we're really talking about humans and their experiences here. And when we think about not just numbers, but actually people, this is when you start to see, I think, potentially some backlash. Everyone agrees on criminals. People might not agree so much on mothers and children who are undocumented in this country.

BLITZER: They want to go into schools and homes and churches as well and try to arrest some of these people.

Kristen, federal agents in the immigration operations were told to be what they called camera ready. What does that say to you about how Trump sees this entire effort?

ANDERSON: I think he understands that this is a human story and that whether or not public opinion stays in his camp, as it is pretty firmly right now, or moves away, is going to come down to what are people seeing on their television? Are they seeing those mothers and children being separated? Is that the lingering image that people get? Or is it photos of gang members being rounded up and saying, sorry, you're out of here?

Trump understands the visuals that are going to be important in how people feel about this and whether he continues to have a honeymoon on this issue.

A. JOHNSON: Well, and one other piece I want to add to this too is we have to be very honest that there are going to be people who see the images of mothers and children who actually will not be affected by it. And that is the piece that concerns me, the people who do not have a soul for that happening.

BLITZER: Yes, that's a significant development, indeed. Guys, thank you very, very much.

Coming up, we're getting a new reaction to President Trump's decision to fire U.S. Justice Department officials who prosecuted him. Republican Senator Mike Rounds is here. He'll join us live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:30:00]

BLITZER: All right, let's get back to the breaking news, President Trump's purge at the U.S. Justice Department. More than a dozen officials who carried out criminal investigations into him now fired.

Joining us now, South Dakota's Republican Senator Mike Rounds. Senator, thank you so much for joining us.

Do you support this firing of career U.S. Justice Department attorneys who are simply doing their job?

SEN. MIKE ROUNDS (R-SD): Well, I'll be honest with you, Wolf. This is the first that I've heard of it, but I suspect that as you may already suspect, it wouldn't surprise me. I would suspect that if you were in his position and you had been prosecuted, you probably would do the same thing, or at least you'd seriously consider it. The last that I had heard, he was asking for information in terms of emails, messages, and so forth to be kept so that it could be reviewed. So, the fact that he has actually pulled the trigger is news to me, but, once again, it would not surprise me. BLITZER: Are you comfortable with that news?

ROUNDS: Well, as I say, I've just heard about it. He constitutionally does have the authority to do so. And he has been very, very aggressive in the use of his constitutional authority. So, once again, it does not surprise me. And he most certainly hasn't asked permission, but he does not need permission to do that. That becomes part of the executive branch of government. And in doing so, he will still have to stand before the American people and explain why.

Based upon what's happening right now, I think the American people are saying okay, we get it, we understand it, and we know the reason why you're doing it.

BLITZER: President Trump is also expected to sign an executive order today banning transgender Americans from serving in the U.S. military. There are an estimated 14,000 transgender service members. Do you agree they should be banned from serving in the U.S. military?

ROUNDS: I think that indicates that's less than 1 percent. I think it's about 7/10 of 1 percent the last time that I looked at it. And, once again, I think part of it is because for those individuals that are undergoing that change or that are in the middle of those medical procedures, the vast majority of them were not eligible for actually being employable or engageable, or deployable overseas during that time period. So, I most certainly agree that we want individuals that are ready to go, and for those individuals that are in the middle of that, yes, I do agree with him on that.

Now, I also know that during his first term he took a little bit of a different approach in that those individuals, as I understand it, who had been through those procedures more than three years earlier, had been allowed to stay.

[18:35:08]

I have not seen the actual orders themselves right now. But I also recognize that he wants individuals that are ready to go to war, that are going to be deployable, and that can defend this country.

Tulsi Gabbard's nomination hearing, the hearing, to be the next director of National Intelligence, begins this coming Thursday. Several of your Republican colleagues have already expressed some serious concern about her given her past dealings with people like the murderous former Syrian dictator, Bashar al-Assad. Do you trust Tulsi Gabbard with the nation's top secrets?

ROUND: Here's what -- I've met with her twice now. And the first time through, as I shared with her, I thought the toughest part for her was going to be to go through the open hearings so that she could convince, number one, the American people and the United States Senate, along with the president of the United States, that she was the right person for the job.

From the first time in which I met her until the second time, where she had the opportunity to go through and really hone her skills and to be able to find out what the questions were going to be asked and so forth, I think she did a very good job of advancing herself in terms of educating herself about the right direction to go, the way to answer the questions, the way to respond.

I also told her at that time, I said, as an elected official, I did not have a problem with someone going overseas, visiting with other people, even if they were of a different political persuasion, as long as it did not influence her role in terms of being a member of Congress at that time. But to learn, that was fine.

So, today, as she is coming before the Senate, she's going to have to answer those same questions in front of the American people, the president, and members of the United States Senate. It's going to be one of those things in which she's going to have sat down and to show a really good knowledge.

I think she can do it. I think she's a very quick study. And, look, I think if the president, he has the benefit of the doubt, in my opinion, and if he says, this is a person that I want to provide me with my daily briefs and so forth, then I give him the benefit of the doubt and unless there's a specific reason why she should not be approved, I think we give the president that opportunity.

BLITZER: All right. South Dakota Senator Mike Rounds, thanks very much for joining us.

ROUNDS: Thank you.

BLITZER: And just ahead, the very real worries over artificial intelligence that are sending a jolt of panic to Wall Street.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:40:00]

BLITZER: A stunning advance from a Chinese artificial intelligence company is sending shockwaves across Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and here in Washington.

CNN's Brian Todd has more for us on this. Brian, this Chinese company is promising artificial intelligence for a fraction of the cost.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf, and tech stocks indeed took a beating today. This new Chinese A.I. technology does seem to pose a threat to established models, like ChatGPT. But just how much of a threat and how long it can sustain are open to debate.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TODD (voice over): A blockbuster reveal showing that China could be closing the gap with the U.S. in the development of artificial intelligence. A Chinese startup company called DeepSeek has shown off a striking new development, an A.I. program called R1, which DeepSeek says has very similar capabilities to ChatGPT, the A.I. model developed by the American tech giant, OpenAI. LANCE ULANOFF, EDITOR AT LARGE, TECH RADAR: It basically was about as good and in a couple of cases maybe a little bit better. And that's impressive because it's out of nowhere.

TODD: But here's the rub. The Chinese company says it only spent $5.6 million training its A.I. program compared to the hundreds of millions, and in some cases, billions of dollars that American companies OpenAI, Meta, and Google spent on their A.I. technologies.

PROF. JEFFREY DING, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: It's about 30 times cheaper than the top U.S. models.

TODD: And that news jarred Wall Street. Tech giants, like NVidia, a top supplier of A.I. chips, have taken a beating, as did Google's parent company, Alphabet.

For those not familiar with A.I., models like ChatGPT are programs that can answer almost any question you have, based on having read millions of pages on the internet.

George Washington University Professor Jeffrey Ding, who's researched China's A.I. programs for about eight years, challenged the new Chinese program with about six probing questions, similar to the way he challenged OpenAI's ChatGPT. The resulting answers, he said --

DING: The first three, about are about the same as what OpenAI came up with.

TODD: We asked Ding a key question.

How has China been able to do this so cheaply and be almost as good, it seems?

DING: Essentially they've found a way to get Better performance without throwing more and more computing resources at the problem, training efficient and smaller models that require less computing power to train.

TODD: And China's done this without access to the latest high tech computer chips, which the U.S. has banned from being exported to China. But one analyst is a bit skeptical, saying, we're taking DeepSeek's word for it that it's doing all this much cheaper than its American competitors.

ULANOFF: We don't know that that is true. We have not verified it yet. We don't know enough details.

TODD: And Lance Ulanoff says there are things American A.I. programs can do that DeepSeeks' R1 can't.

ULANOFF: One of the hallmark hallmarks of some of the best A.I.s is that they can do more than just respond to text prompt. Things like Google Gemini, you can have an audio conversation or you can show it a picture or live video and ask it about it. Now, that's something that DeepSeek R1 cannot yet do.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TODD (on camera): Professor Jeffrey Ding says one key barometer to watch for in DeepSeek R1's future is what it's used most for, whether it's used primarily as an office assistant and productivity type tool or possibly for other things like maybe a source of news, in which case, he says, it could encounter a lot more resistance from entities like the U.S. government.

[18:45:00]

Wolf?

BLITZER: All right. We'll stay on top of this story. Brian Todd reporting, thank you.

And coming up, tens of thousands of Palestinians literally walking home today, more than a year after being ordered out of northern Gaza by the Israeli military.

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BLITZER: In Gaza tonight, displaced Palestinians are making an emotional return home as the fragile ceasefire holds, many residents finding only rubble after more than a year of war between Israel and Hamas.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond is on the story for us -- Jeremy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, tens of thousands of Palestinians beginning to return to northern Gaza early this morning under the guarantees provided by this six-week ceasefire agreement. Usually when we see these scenes of enormous numbers of people on this coastal road in the Gaza Strip, it's because they're fleeing bombs and bullets.

But instead, what we saw today were scenes of unbridled joy, of relief as people were finally able to go back to their homes in northern Gaza.

[18:50:08]

Many of them, after having been displaced for months, some as many as over a year as long as this 15 month war has been going on.

And as they arrived in northern Gaza after chanting as they walked along the street, there were emotional reunions between family members who have been separated for months. But most of the people who were returning were under no illusions about what they would find. And indeed, Wolf, what they found were scenes of enormous destruction in northern Gaza.

But many people who were returning, they said that they didn't know if their homes were destroyed or not, but they wanted to go back to be able to see with their own eyes. And the people who returned to northern Gaza were able to do so after

a 48-hour delay. They were supposed to be able to return home on Saturday on day seven of the ceasefire, but that was delayed amid a dispute between Israel and Hamas over one of the hostages, Arbel Yehud, who Israel expected to be released on Saturday. An agreement has now been reached and Arbel Yehud, one of the last remaining female hostages in Gaza now expected to be released on Thursday -- Wolf.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: All right. Jeremy Diamond in Tel Aviv for us, thank you very much.

Up next, a very emotional day, 80 years in the making.

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[18:55:45]

BLITZER: Today marks 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz. It's a painful anniversary for those who survived the Nazi death camp but a necessary moment to remember the millions of people murdered during the Holocaust.

CNN's Melissa Bell has our report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MELISSA BELL, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Their numbers dwindling but their resolve intact. Survivors supported by their families making the difficult journey back to Auschwitz- Birkenau, the largest and deadliest of the Nazi camps.

JONA LAKS, HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR: At my advanced age, it's really a courageous to come back. I must say it, I didn't want to, but it's necessary. It's necessary for the world to know.

BELL: Jona Laks was just 14 when she was brought by cattle car to Auschwitz with her twin sister, Miriam, and their older sister Chana (ph), in 1944.

By then, most of the more than 1 million people who pass through these infamous gates had been sent straight to their deaths in the gas chambers.

But Jona and Miriam say they were spared by the notorious Nazi doctor, Josef Mengele.

LAKS: Obviously, we were satisfied to get an additional pair of twins for his notorious experiments.

BELL: Were you and Miriam experimented on?

LAKS: We were, of course.

BELL: The serial number tattooed on her arm may have faded, but the memories of the survivors gathered at Auschwitz on Monday were razor sharp.

TOVA FREIDMAN, HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR: I held on tightly to my mother's hand in the dark cattle car for countless hours, while the cries and the prayers of so many desperate women permeated my soul and haunt me to this day.

BELL: Eighty years after the camp's liberation, this may be the last time that the voices of survivors are heard at Auschwitz.

MARIAN TURSKI, HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR (through translator): Those who lived to see freedom, there were really hardly any, so few. And now, there is only a handful left.

BELL: It will soon fall to others, academics, monuments and museums to make sure the enormity of what happened here isn't forgotten.

How important is it that the world marks this and understands what happened?

LAKS: Perhaps it would, hopefully, remind the world that human life is sacred and should be honored.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: CNN's Melissa Bell, reporting from Auschwitz for us.

Nearly two years ago, I had the chance to visit Auschwitz alongside my colleague and friend Dana Bash for a very emotional and deeply personal tour.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: This is so painful for me. It's so personal for me because all four of my grandparents were killed during the Holocaust, and two of them my paternal grandparents, my dad's mom and dad were killed here at Auschwitz.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: My great grandparents, they were Hungarian, so they were safe until 1944. In Hungary, because Hitler didn't invade there until close to the end of the war. So my grandparents were in the United States and they were receiving some letters from my grandmother's parents and as the letters came, they were getting more and more dire.

BLITZER: This is where. They believe my grandparents were killed here.

BASH: Do you think your grandparents were killed right here?

BLITZER: Yes. Yeah. I mean this in this gas chamber. This crematorium, terrible. And just threw the bodies in there.

BASH: Like they were nothing. Not people.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BLITZER: And now, 80 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, it's more important than ever to remember the horrors of the Holocaust. As we often say, never again.

May the victims rest in peace. And may their memories be a blessing.

"ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT" starts right now.