noticing a difference. i stopped taking prevagen and i found myself slacking back, so i jumped right back on it. i've been taking prevagen for about two years now and i found a huge. >> difference provision for your brain. >> closed captioning brought to you by book.com. >> if you or a loved one have mesothelioma, we'll send you a free book to answer questions you may have. call now and we'll come to you. >> 808 two one 4000. >> and our politics lead. this afternoon, the white house released the official portrait of first lady melania trump. the black and white photograph was taken in the yellow oval room of the white house residence last tuesday, the president's first full day in office. the portraits of president trump and vice president vance were released earlier this month. have you ever miss an episode of the lede? you can listen to the show once you get your podcasts. the news continues on cnn with wolf blitzer in the situation room. go, birds.

>> happening now. breaking news. president trump fires more than. >> a dozen. >> u.s. justice department officials who prosecuted him as he orders investigations into 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 orders also on the way tonight, with an expected ban on transgender troops and a crackdown on 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. >> this is cnn breaking news. >> 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. >> 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. >> and, paula, the trump administration also announced they are going to investigate the prosecutors in the january 6th cases. right. >> yeah, 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 hundred 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. 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. >> all right, paula reid, thank you very, very much. i want to get some analysis right now from our legal and political experts at laura coates. let me start with you. the acting attorney general said these officials can't be, quote, trusted, trusted to implement trump's trump's agenda. is this an appropriate use of presidential power? >> i don't believe so, because, of course, the reason. >> you have. >> career officials. >> and instances. >> that you want to have people who are not going to be vulnerable to political persuasion, they are career. meaning that they serve at the pleasure of the president. but because they are there throughout the different administrations, they provide the institutional knowledge and base. they're there to have the due process protections from meritless firings. they can speak their minds at issues that are important. and so if you take the tact, you assume they can never be trustworthy. well, that is really disrupting the entire process of having a career prosecutor whose job it is to serve. 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. >> lulu garcia-navarro is with us as well. lulu, what do you make of this move from the trump department of justice? >> 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 is 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. >> you know, it's interesting. kristen soltis anderson, that

pam 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? >> 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. >> alicia johnson is with us as well. alicia, what do you think 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? >> 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 in this country. he also doesn't seem to believe in the constitution. and so it will 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. >> see if that happens. laura, the trump administration has also launched a probe to investigate, to investigate prosecutors who oversaw the criminal cases against the january 6th defendants. is there any basis for this type of investigation? >> 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 me 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 the special counsel. so to punish for the official behavior of those prosecutors goes directly against the very statements they are saying in that letter. the supreme court talking about immunity for official acts for president of 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 as personally and to fire them when what appears to you that more information, a meritless attempt to try to get retribution and payback. not prudence there. 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, my livelihood, not instead what you want them to think about, which is do i have a case i can prove beyond a reasonable doubt against somebody who is a rightful defendant in any context? it won't just be about trump. it will be about every case they look at. >> 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. >> 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. >> lulu, is this what we are now seeing? >> 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. 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. >> kristen is investigating the investigators. the right move right now. >> 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. >> but they've. >> been telling. >> people that for a long time. if you. >> tell people he's in trouble not to trust. >> people, not to trust institutions, then they will naturally not trust institutions. >> i 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 is created. >> this permission. >> for donald trump to go and do things that would have been considered jaw dropping and unacceptable. >> do you think we could eventually see criminal charges against these prosecutors? >> 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. >> yeah, we're about to see how all of this unfolds. ladies, thank you very, very much. and to our viewers, be sure to watch laura's program later tonight. laura coates live at 11 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

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visionworks see the difference? >> erin burnett out front tonight at seven. on cnn. closed captioning is brought to you by skechers men's beach casual footwear. >> you love this style of shoe. >> now they come. >> in hands free sketcher. >> slip ins. just slip in and go. with no bending. >> down and no touching them. >> try hands. >> free sketcher slip ins. >> 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. >> one of the big. >> one yeah, he's actually still speaking, wolf. >> i want to talk a little quieter because he's speaking right behind me. but he laid out wolf a number of his executive actions that he 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 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. >> 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, that the illegal aliens coming from their countries were 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. >> now, one of the other things that they have to sort out in this meeting, wolf, is 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. 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. >> and manu, the house speaker

johnson is also down in doral where you are. what has he been saying? and what is the opposite? >> yeah, i had a chance to ask him about what donald trump said last week about the issue of aid and 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 billion dollar billions of dollars in aid to california 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 is a matter that, again, comports with common sense that most american people see the value in. >> cathriona heffernan.

>> so typically disaster relief, wolf, as you know, is done on a bipartisan basis with no strings attached. when 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. >> all right, manu, thank you very much. manu raju in doral, florida, for us. i want to bring back our political experts in lulu garcia-navarro. let me start with you. as you know, trump is taking a bit of a 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? >> 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 in russia. >> good point. valencia johnson does colombia backing down show the effectiveness of these trump tariff threats? >> 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 tariffs 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 that 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, 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 is showing that he is going to govern with a very strong fist in ways that, quite frankly, we haven't seen before. >> and, kristen, we're also learning that trump wants his team to dramatically increase increase these arrest quotas for migrants here in the united states. what does that signal to you? >> 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 his government military planes, but filled with people who were 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. >> you wanted to weigh in? >> yeah, i actually want to weigh in, particularly on the immigration piece. and i think to the point you were 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. 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. >> 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? >> 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 and shipped off. and she might not know where he 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. >> they want to go into schools and homes and churches as well, and try to arrest some of these people. kristen, federal agents are 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? >> 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. >> 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. >> yeah, that's a significant development indeed. guys, thank you very, very much. coming up, we're getting 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. >> i've got good news and i've got. >> bad news. >> what do you want? first? the bad. >> the news is. >> newsy even more than ever. >> what's the good news? >> we're doing another. >> season of have i got news for you. >> have i got news for you returns february 15th on cnn. >> to my son. i've never been the cool dad. i always wanted to know what he's up to online. but

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february 16th on cnn. >> 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 braun. senator, thank you so much for joining us. do you support this firing of career u.s. justice department attorneys who were simply doing their job? >> 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. >> may. >> 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. >> are you comfortable with that news? >> 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. >> president trump is also expected to sign an executive order today banning transgender americans from serving in the u.s. military. there are there are an estimated 14,000 transgender service members. do you agree they should be banned from serving in the u.s. military? >> i think that. indicates that's less. >> than 1%. i think it's about 7/10 of 1%. the last time that

i. looked at it, and once again, i think part of it is, is because for those individuals that are undergoing that that change or that are in the middle of those medical procedures, the vast majority of them were not eligible for actually being a 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. yeah, i do agree with him on that. now, i al individuals, as i understand it, who had. who had been through those those procedures more than three years earlier. >> had been. >> allowed to stay. 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, the nation's top secrets? >> 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, of, 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 to have sit 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 why she should not be approved, i think we give the president that opportunity. >> all right. south dakota senator mike rounds, thanks very much for joining us. thank you. and just ahead, the very real worries over artificial intelligence that are sending a jolt of panic to wall

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>> off, plus an additional 15% with code lumen. >> tv. >> welcome back. >> have i got news for you returns february 15th on cnn. >> a stunning advance from a chinese artificial intelligence company is sending shock 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. >> 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. 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. >> 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. >> 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. >> it's about 30 times cheaper than the top u.s. models. >> 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. >> the. >> first three. >> about. >> are about the same as. >> what openai came up with. >> we asked ding a key question how has china been able to do this so cheaply and be almost as good? it seems. >> 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 that require less computing power to train. >> and china has 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 word for it that it's doing all this much cheaper than its american competitors. >> we don't know. >> that. >> that is true. >> we have not. >> verified it yet. >> we don't know enough details. >> and lance ulanoff says there are things american a.i. programs can do that deepseek one can't. >> one of the hallmarks, hallmarks. >> of some. >> of the best ais. >> is that. >> they can do. more than. >> just respond.

>> to text prompts. 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. 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. wolf. >> 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. >> this part changed. >> my life. >> superman. crazy. just that simple little thing. >> over the horse. >> chris wanted to change the world.

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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. >> wolf, tens of thousands of palestinians beginning to return to northern gaza early this morning under the guarantees provided by this six week cease fire 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. 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 cease fire, but that was delayed amid a dispute between israel and hamas over one of the hostages. arbel yehoud, who israel expected to be released on saturday. an agreement has now been reached and arbel yehoud, one of the last remaining female hostages in gaza now expected to be released on thursday. wolf. >> all right. jeremy diamond in tel aviv for us. thank you very much. up next, a very emotional day. 80 years in the making. >> erin burnett out front. >> next on cnn.

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>> which makes. >> it easier for you. >> to hire them. visit indeed.com slash. >> hire. >> closed captioning brought to you by book.com. >> if you or a loved one have mesothelioma, we'll send you a free book to answer questions you may have. call now and we'll come to you. >> 800 821 4000. >> 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. >> 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. >> at my advanced age, it's

really 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. >> joana laks was just 14 when she was brought by cattle car to auschwitz with her twin sister, miriam, and their older sister chana. 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 joanna and miriam say they were spared by the notorious nazi doctor josef mengele. >> obviously, it were satisfied to get an additional pair of twins for his notorious experiments. >> were you and miriam experimented on? >> we were. of course. >> the serial number tattooed on her arm may have faded, but the memories of the survivors gathered at auschwitz on monday

were razor sharp. 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. >> 80 years after the camp's liberation, this may be the last time that the voices of survivors are heard at auschwitz. >> who are. >> those who lived to see freedom? >> there were. >> really hardly any. so few. and now. >> there is only a. >> handful left. >> 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? >> perhaps it would hopefully remind the world that human life. is sacred and should be honored. >> 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. 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. >> 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. >> this is where. >> they believe my grandparents were killed here. >> do you think your grandparents were were killed right here? >> yes. >> yeah. i mean this in this gas chamber. this crematorium. terrible. and just threw the bodies. >> of their. >> like they were nothing. not people. >> and now, 80 years after the liberation of auschwitz, it's more important than ever to remember the horrors of the