Return to Transcripts main page
The Situation Room
New Details of Kohberger Murders Revealed; Trump to Tour Federal Reserve Building; Have Trump Foreign Aid Cuts Resulted in Deaths?. Aired 11:30a-12p ET
Aired July 24, 2025 - 11:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[11:30:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[11:32:13]
WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: This morning, a SITUATION ROOM special report on the impact of the Trump administration's drastic cuts to foreign aid.
Afghanistan is one of the country's hardest hit. The U.S. has canceled $1.7 billion in aid contracts there; $500 million of that had yet to be disbursed. And while other countries also cut back on humanitarian funding and aid to Afghanistan, nearly half of the aid there came from the United States.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has repeatedly said no one has died from the cuts to U.S. aid, but the reality in Afghanistan tells a very, very different story.
I want to warn our viewers, the report you're about to see is very disturbing, but it is important to show you the real-life impact of U.S. aid cuts.
CNN's Isobel Yeung has this SITUATION ROOM special report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ISOBEL YEUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): We're in the Taliban's Afghanistan, a nation now dealing with huge foreign aid cuts.
(on camera): The clinic we're actually heading toward was, until just a few months ago, funded by the U.S. government. Now that the Trump administration has pulled the funding, a lot of people in this area are left with not even basic health care facilities.
(voice-over): The U.N. estimates that an Afghan woman dies every two hours from pregnancy or childbirth. This clinic has now closed.
YEUNG (on camera): So this is where women are giving birth?
SAMIRA SAYED RAHMAN, SAVE THE CHILDREN AFGHANISTAN: Yes. You know, this is the only clinic in this area and now it's gone. YEUNG: Afghanistan has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in
the world, right? What happens to these women now that the delivery room is gone?
RAHMAN: It means that these communities don't have access. It means that women are going to be giving birth at home, meaning more and more children are going to die during childbirth.
YEUNG: We were just talking to the community leaders who were telling us that seven people have died since this clinic closed. And just a couple days ago, a woman died in childbirth because there was nowhere for her to give birth.
(voice-over): When we followed up, the woman's neighbors and family told us that, if the clinic had still been open and she'd had the support of a midwife, she would've survived.
Across Afghanistan, over 400 clinics have closed because of U.S. aid cuts. Millions of people were reliant on these clinics for health care. Now their only option is to travel hours, sometimes days, to public hospitals like this, where there's an influx of new patients.
The U.S. was funding doctors, nurses, and essential drugs here, but now that's also gone.
(on camera): Salaam. How are you?
DR. ANIDULLAH SAMIM, NANGARHAR REGIONAL HOSPITAL: This has the capacity for just one baby. And we have under ours three babies here.
YEUNG: Yes, it's crowded.
SAMIM: Yes. Yes. Crowded. Yes.
[11:35:02]
YEUNG: Is this normal?
SAMIM: Normal? Not normal. When they cut the aid here, our mortality rate, about 3 or 4 percent.
YEUNG: So, 3 to 4 percent more...
SAMIM: Rise...
YEUNG: ... babies are dying since the U.S....
SAMIM: Yes, yes.
YEUNG: Wow.
(voice-over): Malnutrition has soared here; 9.5 million people are severely food-insecure. Several NGOs previously funded by the U.S. are now turning away many people in desperate need of food.
Mohamed Omar (ph) has severe malnutrition and meningitis. The family are poor, and were only recently able to bring him the long distance to this hospital.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): When did he become like this?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): Early in the morning.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): You said it was diarrhea at first and then it got worse.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): Yes, it started with diarrhea.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Since when has he not been able to eat?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): It has been a long time since he could eat on his own.
YEUNG (on camera): Hi. I'm so sorry for what you're going through. Can I ask what your name is?
NAZOGUL, GRANDMOTHER (through translator): My name is Nazogul. He's my grandson.
YEUNG: How old is he?
NAZOGUL (through translator): He just turned 1.
YEUNG: What is his situation? What has the doctor said?
NAZOGUL (through translator): Doctors say that a microbe has infected his brain. He's unconscious now. You can see that the child's condition is very bad.
YEUNG (voice-over): In the middle of speaking, we looked over and realized the child had stopped breathing.
(on camera): Is he breathing?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sorry?
YEUNG: Is he breathing?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You need to go.
YEUNG: We need to go. Oh, sorry. Move, move, move.
He died?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
YEUNG: Oh, my God.
(voice-over): Mohamed's mother returns to the room and the most devastating news.
(SCREAMING) YEUNG (on camera): This is just one family of so many thousands of families that are having to live through this, and it's utterly, heart-wrenchingly devastating.
(voice-over): It's impossible to definitively blame one single factor for Mohamed's death. He was suffering from a range of serious illnesses. But aid cuts have dealt a devastating blow here. Canceling aid to Afghanistan has long been a goal for Congressman Tim Burchett.
REP. TIM BURCHETT (R-TN): Five billion in cash.
YEUNG: Claiming five billion U.S. taxpayer dollars have gone directly to the ruling Taliban, a designated terrorist group. But the U.S. government's own watchdog says it's more like $11 million. The vast majority of money goes to those it's intended for.
(on camera): Are you intentionally misleading the American public when it comes to inflating these figures so that you can get what you want?
BURCHETT: No, ma'am, I'm not. As a matter of fact, $11 million is still a whole lot of money to the average American. If it's one penny going to the Taliban, they'll hate us for free.
YEUNG: What would you say to -- I mean, there are millions of Afghans who are going to be affected by this.
BURCHETT: I would say, you're going to have to make it on your own.
YEUNG: Hundreds of clinics across the country have now closed down. I literally watched a baby die from malnutrition. What would you say to these families who are living through desperate circumstances, devastated by the results of your actions?
BURCHETT: I think it's horrific, but it's not due to my actions, ma'am. We don't have any more money. We're borrowing that money. And, again...
YEUNG: But it is due to your actions. I mean, you have been advocating for this for the last couple of years.
BURCHETT: These are people -- no, ma'am. No ma'am. It's not our response -- we have Americans in the same position. We have Americans that are having trouble with childbirth. We have Americans going hungry. And you want us to borrow money and send it overseas.
YEUNG (voice-over): With the U.S. turning away, the fate of Afghans is now left in the hands of their own government, the Taliban, who say they're capable of running the country without foreign aid. They denied our request for an interview.
But it's the country's most vulnerable, women and children, who stand to lose the most, now facing an isolated future without the support of those who once came to their aid.
Isobel Yeung, CNN, Afghanistan. (END VIDEOTAPE)
BLITZER: And our special thanks to Isobel Yeung for that really moving and excellent, excellent report.
The U.S. State Department, by the way, did not respond to CNN's request for comment, but insisted that America remains the most generous nation in the world.
[11:40:05]
You can read more of Isobel's really terrific, excellent reporting from Afghanistan at CNN.com or by scanning the Q.R. code on your screen.
And we will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLITZER: In just a few hours, President Donald Trump is set to make a rare visit to the Federal Reserve building here in Washington. It's the latest escalation in President Trump's pressure campaign against the Fed chair, Jerome Powell.
The Central Bank's historic headquarters is undergoing a $2.5 billion renovation, which has gone significantly over budget. It's something President Trump has suggested could be a fireable offense.
[11:45:02]
Joining us now, the former senior adviser to President Joe Biden Gene Sperling. He was also a senior economic adviser to Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
Gene,do you see President Trump's decision to go visit the Central Bank headquarters here in Washington as part of an effort to increase pressure on the Fed chair to either resign or be fired?
GENE SPERLING, FORMER DIRECTOR, WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: I don't think there's any question that this is a strategy of blame, deflection, and unfortunately disregard for the rule of law.
I mean, what I'm about to say is really not controversial. President Trump inherited what was universally seen as a soft landing, a type of Goldilocks economy where growth was going to be very solid, 2 and 2.5 percent, inflation was down to 2 percent. This was the estimates of Goldman Sachs, of IMF, almost everyone.
Since then, you have seen what's kind of called stagflationary pressures. You are now seeing growth, instead of being around 2.5 percent, going down to more like 1 percent. And you're seeing inflation, instead of going down to 2 percent, going over 3 percent.
And everyone agrees this is totally due to Trump's very erratic, very reckless tariff strategy. And we're going to see that inflationary effects start to hit more and more people all the time. So, rather than deal with that issue, what the president's doing is looking for someone to blame. And so he's focused on Jerome Powell.
But, as you suggested, he knows that the Supreme Court has suggested he can only fire the Federal Reserve chair for something other than a policy disagreement. So really, like a bad movie or a public kangaroo court, he's trying to trump up -- I use that as a double meaning there, but trump up the charges -- made-up charges by suggesting that they're really focused in the White House on every building of which the cost has been greater since it was estimated before the pandemic hit.
So I don't think one can look at anything going on here as anything other than attack on Fed independence, an attack on our regard for our valued integrity of our institutions and our rule of law in a way that will hurt inflation, will hurt confidence in the United States and is just designed to shift the blame off President Trump for the recent declines in growth and rate -- and increases in inflation.
BLITZER: As you know, President Trump keeps blaming Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, his refusal to lower interest rates...
SPERLING: Right.
BLITZER: ... for a lot of the economic problems that may still be around.
And he's had some really awful things to say about Powell. I want to play a little clip.
SPERLING: Yes.
BLITZER: Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Yes, I think he's doing a bad job, but he's going to be out pretty soon anyway. In eight months, he will be out. He's too late all the time. He should have lowered interest rates many times. Europe lowered their rate 10 times. We lowered ours none.
People aren't able to buy a house because this guy is a numbskull. He keeps the rates too high, and probably doing it for political reasons.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: What's your reaction to that?
SPERLING: I mean, it's outrageous. And, in fact, you actually did just see the European Central Bank and other banks now also feeling they have to pause all because of the uncertainty of Trump's care of policy.
So, first of all, Jerome Powell is a Republican. He was chosen to be chair of the Fed by Trump himself. And if he were to do what President Trump wants, which is look like he is the political servant of Donald Trump, that would hurt confidence. That would drive up mortgage rates more.
People would look at the United States and say, I thought that was a place that was solid, that you could rely on an independent Fed to try to control inflation. Now we know they will do whatever the president says. That means they're going to be more hesitant to lend to the United States. That means interest rates and mortgage rates go up.
So most of what he's saying is not just a little off. It's actually the opposite of what would happen. And, again, if you took away the people who are just getting paid to work for Trump, there's almost -- there's very few economists who would disagree on either side with the analysis I just gave.
BLITZER: Gene Sperling, good to have you back in THE SITUATION ROOM.
SPERLING: Thank you.
BLITZER: Thank you very much.
SPERLING: Thanks, Wolf.
BLITZER: And we will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[11:54:13]
BLITZER: New details this morning in the Bryan Kohberger murder case.
Hundreds of pages of police documents were released overnight, revealing strange happenings at the rental home of the four college students killed back in 2022. Weeks before the murders, one of the victims told her roommates she saw a man she didn't know staring at her when she took her dog outside.
Another time, the residents came home to find the door open loose on its hinges, and it comes after yesterday's very dramatic sentencing hearing, when the victims' families and friends confronted the convicted killer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALIVEA GONCALVES STEVENSON, SISTER OF KAYLEE GONCALVES: You act like no one could ever understand your mind, but the truth is, you're basic. You're a textbook case of insecurity disguised as control. Your patterns are predictable. Your motives are shallow. You are not profound. You're pathetic.
[11:55:07]
Let me be very clear. Don't ever try to convince yourself you mattered just because someone finally said your name out loud. I see through you. You want the truth? Here's the one you will hate the most. If you hadn't attacked them in their sleep, in the middle of the night like a pedophile, Kaylee would have kicked your fucking ass.
DYLAN MORTENSEN, SURVIVOR: He is a hollow vessel, something less than human, a body without empathy, without remorse.
He chose destruction. He chose evil. He feels nothing. He tried to take everything from me, my friends, my safety, my identity, my future. He took their lives, but I will continue trying to be like them to make them proud.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: Kohberger was sentenced to life without parole, but we still don't know why he killed those four University of Idaho students. Authorities say records that could shed light on that may not be released for a while, if at all.
Thanks very much for joining me this morning. You can always keep up with me on social media @WolfBlitzer. Keep up with Pamela Brown @PamelaBrownCNN. I will see you back here tomorrow morning, every weekday morning, 10:00 a.m. Eastern.
"INSIDE POLITICS," with Manu Raju today, comes up right after a short break.
