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Multiple Meetings Over Russia and Ukraine Peace; Anne Applebaum is Interviewed about Government Cuts and Firings; Best Moments from "Saturday Night Live.". Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired February 17, 2025 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00]

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: Peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. Whether the majority would agree on a Russia peace deal with Ukraine where Ukraine has nothing to do with it, that might be a different question.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Hard to know.

Harry Enten, thank you very much.

ENTEN: Thank you, my friend.

BERMAN: Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Also this morning, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy putting out new reaction to the meeting in Saudi Arabia that Ukraine is not part of. Making clear that the war will not end if Ukraine is not involved.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Ukraine will not participate. Ukraine knew nothing about them. Ukraine perceives any negotiations about Ukraine without Ukraine as those with no results. We cannot recognize anything or any agreements about us without us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: And joining us right now is retired Navy Admiral James Stavridis, a former NATO supreme allied commander, on with us now as a CNN senior military analyst. And we are lucky to have you. He's also a partner at the Carlyle Group, a global investment firm, serves on the boards or advises a handful of defense-related companies.

Admiral, it's really good to see you once again. Thank you for coming in.

First, can - let's - I want to ask you first about the meeting happening today. This emergency meeting between - between European leaders, France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and more meeting in Paris to coordinate a response to these opening talks right now that Europe is blocked out of. What do you see as the options for Europe if they aren't brought in pretty quickly?

ADM. JAMES STAVRIDIS (RET.), CNN SENIOR MILITARY ANALYST: I think this meeting is excellent. And what it shows is the light is going on for the Europeans that they've got to come together. When you put together the European nations economies, their defense spending, it's always the second largest entity in the world after the United States. But individually they don't have that throw weight.

So, as they come together, look for Emmanuel Macron of France, look for the U.K.'s Keir Sterner, look for the German leader, all of them are going to try to push together this idea of European unity, particularly as they perceive, I think correctly, that the United States' enthusiasm, as Harry just showed us, for the Ukrainian project is waning. It's time for Europe to step up. This is a good meeting.

BOLDUAN: And then let's look ahead to tomorrow. I want to play something else that we actually heard from Ukraine's president in an interview that aired over the weekend, leading into this big meeting tomorrow between the U.S. and Russia.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you think President Trump is negotiating in good faith?

PRESIDENT VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINE: I hope so, I hope so. Yes. I count on it. I count on it very much.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is Putin capable of negotiating in good faith?

ZELENSKYY: No. You will see. Everybody will see. He will - he will try to begin something new.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Admiral, where do you see this is going? What do you see is - I don't even know if you can call it a best-case scenario or just the most likely scenario to come out of - out of this right now?

STAVRIDIS: Yes, let's stay on the realism side of the equation, Kate. I think realistically Putin has a pretty strong hand of cards to hold on to Crimea and the four provinces, the land bridge to Russia. That's about 20 percent of Ukraine.

On the other hand, if the United States puts pressure on Putin, if we continue to support Ukraine, and if, as we discussed a moment ago, the Europeans step up, I think the remainder of Ukraine, that 80 percent, will sail on democratic free. Ultimately, it will have a path to NATO. But one of Putin's conditions will be in the short term, no NATO membership. But to summarize, I think what you see in current terms of territoriality is probably what you're going to get where the deal lands.

BOLDUAN: If you - if it - if it lands at 80/20, who then has won this war? How do you see that being decided? STAVRIDIS: I think Putin lost the war in that scenario. And you can

argue about this, but, don't forget, three years ago his stated objective was to conquer the entire country, effectively absorb 40 million Ukrainians, all of that mineral resources, all of that agrarian capacity. He's getting 20 percent under this scenario.

And look at that 20 percent, Kate. It's been a war zone for three years. It's full of unexploded ordnance. Its infrastructure is largely destroyed. And it is anything but the grand prize. Frankly, it's a bit of a poisoned chalice at this point in that Putin would have to pay to do the reconstruction.

And then finally, what else has he accomplished?

[09:35:03]

He's strengthened NATO. He's brought Finland and Sweden into NATO. He's made the Baltic Sea a NATO lake, and he has brought the alliance to a position of operating together. I think in every sense he's not a winner at the end of this negotiation.

BOLDUAN: Let's see what comes today and tomorrow for sure to see, at least in the most immediate, the direction this is all headed. Admiral James Stavridis, it is great to see you again. Thank you.

Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Some global political experts and historians are now warning President Trump and Elon Musk push to reshape the government could be threatening the very foundation of American democracy. We will discuss.

And it was a star-studded, nostalgia packed night at "SNL," which celebrated 50 years with legendary host, iconic sketches and some unforgettable music moments.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:40:39]

SIDNER: Over the last few weeks, President Trump and billionaire Elon Musk have been reshaping the federal government, firing thousands of workers and gutting several agencies. They say it will make the government more efficient and save taxpayer dollars. Some are comparing these changes, though, to something far bigger and more dangerous, regime change.

In "The Atlantic," historian Anne Applebaum says this is hardly new. She writes, "in the 21st century, elected leaders such as Hugo Chavez or Viktor Orban have also used their democratic mandates for the same purpose. Chavez fired 19,000 employees of the state oil company. Orban dismantled labor protections for the civil service. Trump, Musk and Russell Vought, the newly appointed director of the Office of Management and Budget and architect of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, the original regime change blueprint, are now using IT operations, captured payment systems, secretive engineers, a blizzard of executive orders and viral propaganda to achieve the same thing."

She joins me now from Warsaw.

Thank you so much for joining me.

And reading through this piece, I am curious about this. Regime change is the replacement of a government, usually through force. How did you come to the conclusion that this is what is happening in this country when Donald Trump was elected by the public?

ANNE APPLEBAUM, STAFF WRITER, "THE ATLANTIC": So, to be clear, this kind of change does not usually use force. And the two examples that you cited from my article, which is Hungary and Venezuela, no force was used to change the nature of the government.

I'm not talking yet about Democratic elections. We haven't seen an assault on - on that system - system yet. But it's pretty clear that despite its name, the Department of Government Efficiency is not interested in efficiency. If you want an efficient reworking of the government, you don't offer a buyout to every government employee. You don't know which ones you're hiring and firing. You don't randomly cut people from, you know, from government departments that - whose - whose functions you don't understand. You don't hide and conceal the conflicts of interest of the people who are doing the cutting. Elon Musk has personal interests in many of the institutions and organizations that he's seeking to reshape. You know, they've been regulating his own businesses. And we just simply don't know what his interests are here.

Therefore, you have to conclude that there's something else happening. And it's clear from the way these - the way this is going, that the purpose is to change the ethos and the values of the federal civil service. And again, that's something that people have done before in other - in other countries. The U.S. has a civil service that dates from the late 19th century. It has an ethos that its members work for the Constitution, not for one person or for one political party. They change their policies, whether it's a Democrat or a Republican, but their goal is to achieve things on behalf of the American people. Once you don't have that ethos, once you have people who are working just for Trump or just for the people around Trump, then you will get a different kind of government. And that's the - that's the argument that I'm making.

I think it's indisputable because it's what they say they want. They - this is what Vance said before the election. He talked about replacing every member of the - of the - of the federal government. It's what Steve Bannon said. He talked about destroying the administrative state. So, these are - this is their language. This is - this is what they've said they want. And what we're watching is them carrying it out.

SIDNER: I do want to ask you about this because DOGE has this, you know, website. It's sort of set up like X, or formerly known as Twitter, where they reveal what they have saved Americans. And they list a bunch of different things. You take issue with some of the things that they have listed and the way that they have described them to the public.

Give me some sense of what you have found and some of the things they have listed, for example, condoms to Gaza, which turned out not to be to the Gaza that everyone is talking about that is in war but in another place.

APPLEBAUM: Nor was it 50,000 in condoms. But, anyway - but, no, they - there have been - the, you know, clearly false statements about payments to "Politico," about payments to Chelsea Clinton, about condoms for Gaza.

[09:45:11]

There has also been a kind of smear campaign conducted against USAID, which has been the United States' premier institution, both for distributing humanitarian aid around the world, helping the poorest people on the planet, has also been really important to the promotion of democracy, the, you know, in parts of the world that the U.S. has cared about. It's been a really important tool of American foreign policy. And Musk has sometimes leaked things and sometimes revealed things that were well known. I mean most of the information about USAID spending has been available on government websites forever. You know, if you wanted to know something about it, you could have - you could have found out last year.

But the goal of doing this seems to have been to traumatize the people who work for USAID and also to traumatize people who work for other government institutions. I mean everybody saw what happened, right? USAID was, from one day to the next, destroyed. This is a congressionally created institution, and Congress had no voice in destroying it. And its members were smeared and its goals were distorted. And now everybody who works for any other part of the federal government knows that the same thing could happen to them.

So, the purpose of doing that right at the beginning, and particularly something like foreign aid, which is maybe less well understood than it should be among most Americans, the purpose of doing that was to frighten other people and to make other people in other parts of the government aware that at any moment they could be the targets of that kind of campaign too.

SIDNER: Anne Applebaum, thank you so much. Appreciate it. You have this whole article in "The Atlantic." Appreciate your time this morning.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: This morning we have the best on screen and behind the scenes moments that you might have missed from "SNL's" 50th anniversary celebration.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARTIN SHORT, ACTOR/COMEDIAN: I thought we were hosting together.

STEVE MARTIN, ACTOR/COMEDIAN: Oh, uh, do you have your passport on you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.

MARTIN: ICE, get him!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. No. I'll cooperate. Don't take me. I'll name names. Mike Myers, Jim Carrey, Catherine O'Hara.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:51:47]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Have you seen the latest study on alcohol? Even one drink can significantly slash life expectancy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why you try to live without Domingo (ph), baby, he, he, he.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But hold this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have to do this dance for work.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, I'm sorry, where do you work?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm the press secretary at the White House. This is like, if people are so angry about DEI, it's like, well, stop drinking and driving.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: "Saturday Night Live" celebrated 50 years with one heck of a special. It seemed like everyone was there.

CNN's Elizabeth Wagmeister has all the best moments.

What did you like?

ELIZABETH WAGMEISTER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: I loved the entire show, John. And this was really the rare TV moment that it felt like a huge deal. It felt like everybody you were talking to was watching. And as you've said, everybody was there.

Of course there have been nearly a thousand guest hosts over the 50 years. So, you had a ton of celebrities and you had a ton of returning alums from "SNL."

So there, of course, we see Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. And they did this roll call in the audience. And honestly, one of the best parts of the show was just looking out at the audience and seeing how star- studded it was. I mean you had Jerry Seinfeld. You had Larry David. You had Billy Crystal. Like, every which way you looked, the stars were more famous than the next. So, let's take a moment at that roll call with Tina and Amy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TINA FEY, ACTRESS/COMEDIAN: Keith Richards.

KEITH RICHARDS, MUSICIAN: (INAUDIBLE). I left a scarf here in 1988. And I'm kind of wondering if anybody's seen it around, you know?

FEY: A scarf? Yes. It's - in 1998. Well, now that's a long time ago. I don't know.

AMY POEHLER, ACTRESS/COMEDIAN: Yes, I don't think so. I'm not sure.

ZACH GALIFIANAKIS, ACTOR/COMEDIAN: Look, it's simply not here, OK? Can we all just stop looking? Next question.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WAGMEISTER: So there you see Zach Galifianakis. And by the way, he also had a joke about Kanye West. There were some jokes throughout the night about Diddy, who is currently in jail. Also, Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively were there. So, as "SNL" always does, it leaned into the pop culture drama of the moment.

Now, as I said, there were so many returning alums and you kind of forget how many comedic stars came from "SNL," whether it's Chris Rock or Adam Sandler, Eddie Murphy. In fact, Eddie Murphy was part of a sketch, black jeopardy, and he impersonated Tracy Morgan while standing next to Tracy Morgan. So, let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRACY MORGAN, ACTOR/COMEDIAN: Speaking of family. Darius and Tracy, y'all seem like y'all might be related.

EDDIE MURPHY, ACTOR/COMEDIAN: Well, James Earl Jones was my biological father. James Earl Jones impregnated my mother on the set of "Claudine" on Edgecombe Avenue in Harlem.

[09:55:00]

You know what, I think we might be related.

MORGAN: I don't see it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WAGMEISTER: What do you guys think? How was Eddie's Tracy Morgan? Did he nail it?

SIDNER: So good. He - of course he nailed it. Man, I miss Eddie Murphy on that show. He was a delight.

BERMAN: Well, what was so great is the 40th anniversary he came back, but he sort of just was on stage. He didn't play ball in the - in the skits and stuff. This time he was everywhere. It was fantastic. Just fantastic.

SIDNER: So true.

BERMAN: We're looking at Adam Sandler right now, who also -

BOLDUAN: That was a really sweet moment.

BERMAN: He brought the house down with that song, Elizabeth.

WAGMEISTER: He did. And even before he started this song, which was about the 50 years of "SNL." And it was funny. There was a lot of heart and soul. He gave a tribute to his good late friend Norm Macdonald. But even before Adam Sandler got on the stage for his performance, Jack Nicholson introduced him. This was Jack Nicholson's first television appearance in years. And audiences at home were shocked and so happy to see him looking happy and healthy. So, again, star studded, great night and really incredible what "SNL" has done for not just comedy, but American culture throughout these five decades.

BERMAN: Yes, reuniting the stars of "Anger Management," you know, which everyone had been clamoring for.

Elizabeth Wagmeister, thank you very much for that.

BOLDUAN: And thank you all so much for joining us today. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL. CNN NEWSROOM is up next.

SIDNER: Live from New York, it's CNN NEWS CENTRAL on a Monday.

BERMAN: Well done.

BOLDUAN: Yes, we can say that.

BERMAN: On Monday.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)