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New Footage Released of Plane Crash at Toronto International Airport; Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz Discuss Their Recent Meeting with Russian Counterparts on Ending Russia-Ukraine War; Rubio: Goal is to end this Conflict "In a Way That is Fair;" Interview with Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD). Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired February 18, 2025 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: That is across the northern plains. That cold, arctic air mask is going to descend on those very areas that have been hit hard by the recent flooding. And to complicate matters, there is a snowstorm impending across the region as well.

Looking at the windchill values across the northern plains, you will get frostbite in 10 minutes if you step outside with those types of values below zero. Just incredible. The extreme cold alerts, they extend from the border of Canada all the way to Mexico, and they will shift eastward with time as this cold air continues to move eastward. In fact, three out of four Americans will experience temperatures below freezing over the next week. And that is a large population of our country that will experience these frigid, frigid temperatures.

So here's the other complicating factor. The winter storm watches that were in place across Kentucky yesterday have now been upgraded to a warning, so it is certain that we will see impactful snowfall from the storm that is moving through the region. And also the potential for snowfall across the east coast as well as we monitor the rising flood waters, some rivers still cresting. And then here comes the snow to complicate matters further. Kate?

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: It's going to be a tough week for a lot, a lot of people.

DAM: It is, indeed.

BOLDUAN: Derek, thank you very much for watching that for us.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, we do have breaking news. Brand new video, actually two new videos coming from Toronto on the Delta flight that flipped on the runway. These are amazing vantage points. And again, thankfully, all 80 people survived.

A major resignation at the Social Security Administration. A key official quits over the actions of Elon Musk's team. And plus, rescue after a teenager was trapped in a mineshaft 50 feet

below the ground.

Sara is out today. I'm John Berman with Kate Bolduan. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

And the breaking news. We do have brand new video, we just got our hands on it, showing the moment a Delta plane crashed and flipped upside down at Toronto International Airport. This is one of the new vantage point. You can see how hard that plane landed and the sparks. Again, 18 people were hurt. Incredibly, all 80 on board survived. And that's one of the new videos. The other one is this. I'm just seeing it for the first time as well. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh -- . Oh --. Oh, no, no, no, no. Oh, that's. Are you seeing this airplane is crashing? Oh, my God. Oh my God.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: What a vantage point that was. You saw the plane come down. We apologize for the profanity, but we just got that video in, screening it there for the very first time. As these people were watching the plane go down, you could see the smoke and you could see the flames there. That Delta flight was on the way from Minneapolis. An investigation is now underway to determine what caused it. We do know about the weather conditions. It was cold. There had been snow on the ground. There were wind gusts of about 40 miles per hour. Again, the snow could have affected the visibility there.

CNN's Jason Carroll is in Toronto this morning for the very latest. Jason, I do have to say, these two new videos give us a whole new perspective on what happened.

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: In perspective, in terms of when you think of all 80 people who were on board that flight, 76 passengers, four crew members, how lucky they are to be alive. When you see that video, when you saw what happened there as Delta flight 4819 was on approach, just as it landed, hit hard, and then that fireball erupted. And then, of course, we now know and have known for some time now that all on board survived, 18 people injured.

Still so many questions, though, about what caused this accident. The Delta flight was cleared on approach. Emergency officials say the runway was dry and that there were no crosswind conditions. Passengers that spoke to CNN say all seemed normal upon approach, but once it landed, the plane hit hard. Suddenly, they say they were on their side, the plane was on its side, and then the plane was upside down.

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JOHN NELSON, SURVIVED DELTA PLANE CRASH IN TORONTO: It happened so quickly, right? You hit. There's this like giant, like pop, crack. You know, it's this, like, super loud bang kind of thing happens, and then everything just goes literally sideways. And it happened so fast that I just remember, like, kind of pulling myself in and trying not to hit my head against anything. And luckily our flight attendants and everything were helpful for us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARROLL: And really, John, the flight attendants, the crew there should be commended for getting everyone there on board that flight off safely and to safety. Investigators clearly now have a few factors that are weighing in their favor. The plane is intact, so they're going to have easy access to the flight data recorder, the cockpit voice recorder. They'll be able to interview the pilot and the copilot. So they'll have easy access to the crew as well. But even with all that, it's still going to be some time before we have an exact cause of this crash. John?

BERMAN: All right, Jason Carroll for us in Toronto. Again, what we're seeing, these two different angles of this crash for the first time. It is remarkable. Even more remarkable all 80 people survived. Thank you for your reporting, Jason. Kate?

BOLDUAN: All right, let's go overseas right now, because moments ago, the U.S. delegation, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the president's National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, and the Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff, they wrapped up their meeting with their Russian counterparts, discussions to potentially work towards an end to the war in Ukraine, and spoke to reporters. Listen to this.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're joined now by the U.S. delegation that just wrapped up their meetings with the Russians. Are you walking away with this with any Agreements or any follow up conversations?

MARCO RUBIO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Well, I would start by saying we've agreed on four principles that I think are important. The first is that we are going to work, we're going to appoint our teams, respectively, to work very quickly to reestablish the functionality of our respective missions in Washington and in Moscow. For us to be able to continue to move down this road, we need to have diplomatic facilities that are operating and functioning normally.

The second point is that we're going to appoint a high level team from our end to help negotiate and work through the end of the conflict in Ukraine in a way that's enduring and acceptable to all the parties engaged.

The third point is to begin to work at a high level as well, to begin to discuss and think about and examine both the geopolitical and economic cooperation that could result from an end to the conflict in Ukraine. Obviously, we have to see that conflict come to a successful and enduring end in order for that to be possible.

And the last thing we agreed to is that while our teams are going to be working on all of this, the four of us who are here today, the five of us that were here today, are going to remain engaged in this process to make sure that it's moving along in a productive way.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What does an enduring and successful end look like? Did you present any proposals to the Russians today?

REP. MIKE WALTZ, (R-FL): Well, there are some underlying principles. This needs to be a permanent end to the war, and not a temporary end, as we've seen in the past. We know just the practical reality is that there is going to be some discussion of territory, and there's going to be discussion of security guarantees. Those are just fundamental basics that will undergird and underlie any type of discussion.

But I think the most important part is the president has stated his desire, his determination to end this war, to end the killing that is going on, the death and destruction that is happening as this war goes on and on month after month after month. And the killing fields of eastern and southern Ukraine is unacceptable. It is not in the interest of either country. It's not in the interest of the world, and certainly not in the interest of the United States and Europe.

So all of those things will drive the negotiations going forward. And as you can see, the president, President Trump is determined to move very quickly. We just had a head of state phone call, the first in years, and here we are less than a week later at the highest level of the U.S. and Russian government. And we expect to continue to drive that pace to not only end the war, but then to unlock what could be very productive and stabilizing relationships going forward.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You mentioned territories. Is it acceptable to the U.S. for Russia to retain any territory that is annexed since the beginning of the war in February 2022?

WALTZ: Well, I think those are things that -- those are to be discussed.

[08:10:02]

And those are things that we'll start and do the tough work ahead. But the important thing is that we've started that process. And what the president did not find acceptable was an endless war in Europe that was literally turning into, has turned into a meat grinder of people on both sides.

So if you just think about, just in a few months, President Trump has shifted the entire global conversation from not if the war is going to end, but just how it's going to end. And only President Trump can do that. And in the Oval Office less than a week ago, both President Putin and President Zelenskyy both said to him, only you, President Trump, could drive this war to a conclusion.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What concessions do you expect?

RUBIO: Well, again, we're not going to negotiate in or an end to this conflict. These are the kinds of things that have to happen through hard and difficult diplomacy in closed rooms over a period of time.

What's important to understand is two things. The first is the only leader in the world who can make this happen, who can even bring people together to begin to talk about it in a serious way is President Trump. He's the only one in the world that can do that right now.

The second thing I would say is that in order for a conflict to end, everyone involved in that conflict has to be OK with it. It has to be acceptable to them. But we have to understand that it's been three- and-a-half since there's been any sort of regularized contact between the United States and Russia, and in some cases between any of the participants in this conflict and Russia. So the goal of today's meeting was to follow up on the phone call the president had a week ago and begin to establish those lines of communication.

The work remains, today as the first step of a long and difficult journey, but an important one. And President Trump is committed to bringing an end to this conflict. And as he said when he campaigned for president, and he wants it to be ended in a way that's fair. He wants it to end in a way that's sustainable and enduring, not that leads to another conflict in two to three years. That's not going to be easy to achieve, but he's the only one in the world that can begin that process. Donald Trump is the only leader in the world that could initiate that process. And today was the first step in in that process.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is sanctions relief going to be involved in any of this normalizing or trying to more level set the relationship between the U.S. and Russia? Did the Russians bring up sanctions relief in the meeting today?

RUBIO: Well, sanctions are all the result of this conflict. There are sanctions that were imposed as a result of this conflict. And so I would say to you that, in order to bring an end to any conflict, there has to be concessions made by all sides. We're not going to predetermine what those are. Again, we're not certainly not going to negotiate this today or in a press conference, for that matter. But -- and there are other parties that have sanctions. The European Union is going to have to be at the table at some point because they have sanctions as well that have been imposed.

So, but I guess the point here is the goal is, and we agreed on what the goal is. The goal is to bring an end to this conflict in a way that's fair, enduring, sustainable, and acceptable to all parties involved. What that looks like, well, that's what the what the ongoing engagement is going to be all about.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Ukrainians and the Europeans have suggested they feel very sidelined about how the process has played out so far. How do you intend to address their concerns, and will they be incorporated in future meetings in a multilateral way?

RUBIO: Well, the comment I would have on that is that for three-and- a-half years while this conflict has raged, or three years while it's raged, no one else has been able to bring something together like what we saw today, because Donald Trump is the only leader in the world that can. So no one is being sidelined here. But President Trump is in a position that he campaigned on, to initiate a process that could bring about an end to this conflict.

And from that could emerge some very positive things for the United States, for Europe, for Ukraine, for the world. But first, it begins by the end of this conflict. And so the only thing President Trump trying to do is bring about peace. It's what he campaigned on. It's something the world should be thanking President Trump for doing. He was able -- he's been able to achieve what for three, two-and-a-half, three years, no one else has been able to achieve, which is to bring, to begin this process, a serious process. Obviously, a lot of work remains before we have the result. But President Trump is the only one that can do it.

WALTZ: Look, it's common sense. If you're going to bring both sides together, you have to talk to both sides. And we'll continue to remind everyone, literally within minutes of President Trump hanging up with President Putin, he called and spoke with President Zelenskyy. So shuttle diplomacy has happened throughout history. It's happened all over the world. We are absolutely talking to both sides. The secretary of state just met with President Zelenskyy days ago, along with the vice president. Seven cabinet members in Europe at the same time, really showing the importance of engaging our allies. President Trump spoke with President Macron just yesterday. Prime Minister Starmer is coming to Washington next week. So I think the facts will continue to push back on this notion that our allies have not been consulted -- they are being consulted literally almost on a daily basis and we'll continue to do so.

[08:15:00]

REPORTER: Did you set a date for the two presidents to meet at this meeting?

BOLDUAN: All right, we've been listening right here. And it continues listening to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the top US officials that were in the room at the table with the Russian counterparts today. The first real meeting in the discussion to potentially end Russia's war on Ukraine as was just noting right there by our Jenny Hansler that Ukraine has been left out, not involved in this meeting at all. But as they say, they are going -- they are being consulted as what Mike Waltz just said.

Let's talk about what we have learned from this very important first meeting that's been happening in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Joining us right now is the Democratic senator from Maryland, Chris Van Hollen. He sits on the Foreign Relations Committee.

Senator, thank you so much for being here. I mean, Rubio making clear he's not going to really tip his hand or negotiate in public, saying today, was about beginning to establish lines of communication once again with Russia and called it a first step in a long and difficult journey.

What do you take from what we've just heard from the Secretary of State, your former colleague, coming out of this very high-stakes meeting with his Russian counterparts? SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D-MD): Well, Kate, it's great to be with you and I think everybody would like to see a negotiated sustained peace to the war in Ukraine. No one more than the Ukrainian people.

I met with President Zelenskyy at the Munich Security Conference just this weekend and his point was that Ukraine needs to be at the table.

So, the big missing party at that meeting in Riyadh was Ukraine. And, what we saw in Munich was a series of Trump administration officials essentially trying to bully Ukraine into giving up lots of its natural resources in exchange for continued US support.

Not even that, just to pay back the support which we provided because of Putin's assault on Ukraine. And as you know, Secretary Rubio can say he doesn't want to negotiate at this point in time, but they began this process with major unilateral concessions to Putin and Russia. That is not how you start a negotiation. That's why President Zelenskyy and our European allies are so, so worried at this moment.

BOLDUAN: You did hear the National Security adviser say, you know, the goals here. How do you make it enduring successful? What does that look like, a peace agreement here -- he says, what we'll need to be part of it is the practical reality of some discussion of territory, which obviously you can read that as when Russia has annexed either since the beginning of this war or since 2014, and also some discussion of security guarantees, which, of course, that would be on the side of Ukraine.

What would you like to see be the next step? Marco Rubio has said over the weekend and also his spokesperson said that they're making clear that Ukraine will be involved. This is not going to be negotiated without Ukraine's involvement.

What kind of involvement do you think Ukraine needs to have, or do you think is going to have in this?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, I think Ukraine needs to be at the table when these negotiations are going on. After all, Putin attacked Ukraine. Ukraine has lost thousands and thousands of its people.

And so, to even begin a process without including Ukraine is perceived by Ukraine and many around the world as just throwing them under the bus. And, you know, Kate, I heard Secretary Rubio --

BOLDUAN: Can I ask you really quick just on that, Senator, Mike Waltz seemed to -- his physicality in that interview was kind of dismissive in saying -- in responding to a question that Ukraine has felt left out.

He said something to the effect of this talk of that we haven't been consulted, they have been consulted from the very beginning -- it seems to be maybe a different view or trying to downplay that Ukraine is being left out, seem to have a different viewpoint on what being at the table looks like from their view.

VAN HOLLEN: Well, I'm just repeating what I understood President Zelenskyy to say. I think he's in a better position to explain the position of the people of Ukraine than Mike Waltz.

And at the Munich Conference, the Trump administration came in having already made unilateral concessions on issues like security guarantees.

In other words, they said that Ukraine cannot be part of NATO ever, and that the United States will not back up with its own forces, security guarantees made by others. That is a big concession right off the bat. Putin is smiling about that.

They also made concessions, the Trump team on the territorial piece right from the beginning. So, they can say all they want right now. But what they did in Munich with President Zelenskyy was primarily to bully him, right.

[08:20:25]

The Secretary of Treasury handed him a piece of paper that essentially required Ukraine to hand over about 50 percent of its mineral reserves to the United States simply in payment of the support that we've already given, which we've given because they were a democratic country attacked by Putin and the Russian forces.

I mean, can you imagine FDR in the middle of World War II saying to Churchill, you know, we're not going to continue to help you until you turn over half of your coal and mineral reserves. That's not how you behave when you want to support a friend who is under attack by an authoritarian like Putin.

BOLDUAN: Senator, I really appreciate you coming on listening to this interview as it was coming in with us. Let us see what comes from this now. Senator, thank you so much for your time -- John.

BERMAN: All right, breaking this morning, a top official of the Social Security Administration has quit after refusing to give Elon Musk and his team access to sensitive information.

And, "They deserve a long-prison sentence." The new threat by Elon Musk to CBS, the journalist behind "60 Minutes" after he calls them the biggest liars in the world.

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BERMAN: All right, new this morning, sources tell CNN that the acting head of the Social Security Administration, Michelle King, has resigned over Elon Musk's team requesting access to sensitive Social Security information. Let's get right to CNN's Rene Marsh for the latest on this. What are you learning, Rene?

RENE MARSH, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: John, good morning.

King worked at this agency for more than 30 years, and she walked away from her decades of service after clashing with Elon Musk's DOGE requests for access to sensitive systems that contain Social Security recipient's personal information, including medical and financial information.

Now, keep in mind some 72.5 million people, including retirees, disabled people and children receive Social Security benefits. So, we're talking about access to millions of Americans' personal information at this agency.

Musk has said that this is all about identifying waste and fraud at government agencies and we should note that this is not the only agency where DOGE has accessed Americans' sensitive private information, making many career federal employees at those agencies uncomfortable and concerned.

Career employees have had similar concerns at the IRS and the Treasury Department also getting access to these sensitive systems, John. So, the Social Security Administration is just the latest, back to you.

BERMAN: All right, Rene Marsh for us in Washington. Thank you so much for that update.

A warning to National Park's visitors -- expect to see noticeable impacts to the park service, the latest federal agency feeling the Trump administration's employee purge.

And an adventure with friends turns into a rescue mission after a teenager became trapped 50ft deep in a mine shaft.

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