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Mixed Messages Come Out of the White House Over Ukraine; Trump Announces Plan for New Tariffs; More Hostages are Expected to be Freed; U.S. Justice Department Faces Crisis Over Mass U.S. Federal Layoffs and Resignations; DOJ Officials Resign, Refuge To Drop NYC Mayor Case; White House Blocks AP From Trump News Conference Thursday. Aired 2-2:45a ET
Aired February 14, 2025 - 02:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello and welcome. I'm Ivan Watson in Hong Kong. Ahead on CNN Newsroom, we're hearing for the first time that U.S. troops could be sent to Ukraine. Who's saying it and how it could be received at a security conference beginning today? President Trump announces plans for more sweeping tariffs on nations that export to the U.S. And crisis at the U.S. Justice Department, senior officials resigned after refusing to dismiss federal charges against New York's mayor.
We begin with mixed messages coming out of the White House on the war in Ukraine. Vice President J.D. Vance, in an exclusive interview with "The Wall Street Journal," says the U.S. could send troops to Ukraine if Vladimir Putin does not negotiate a peace deal in good faith. Vance also says increased sanctions remain on the table if a peace deal does not guarantee Kiev's long-term independence. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is refusing to acknowledge a basic truth about the fighting in Ukraine, that Russia started the war when it invaded its neighbor.
The U.S. president hosting India's prime minister at the White House instead blamed his predecessor, Joe Biden, and Ukraine's ambition to join NATO. It's not a new position for Mr. Trump and it echoes Moscow's own justification for what it calls its special military operation. The comments come after President Trump spoke with Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, sparking concerns that Ukraine would be left out of negotiations to end the fighting. Here is the president's position.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Russia has taken over a pretty big chunk of territory, and they also have said from day one, long before President Putin, they've said they cannot have Ukraine be a NATO. They said that very strongly. I actually think that that was the thing that caused the start of the war. If a better deal can be negotiated, if they're able to make a deal where they can do that, that's fine with me. I really don't care. I want -- I want that bloodshed to stop.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WATSON: Now, Ukrainian and U.S. officials will have a chance to discuss those issues face-to-face at the Munich Security Conference, which begins in the coming hours. U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance is set to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the event. Vance's statement about the U.S. possibly sending troops to Ukraine would seem to contradict what the U.S. defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, said just the day before. He said deploying U.S. forces to Ukraine is not an option. Hegseth also said it's unrealistic to expect that Ukraine will join NATO, which he partly walked back on Thursday.
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J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: These negotiations are led by President Trump. Everything is on the table in his conversations with Vladimir Putin and Zelenskyy. What he decides to allow or not allow is at the purview of the leader of the free world of President Trump. So, I'm not going to stand at this podium and declare what President Trump will do or won't do, what will be in or what will be out, what concessions will be made or what concessions are not made.
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WATSON: Now, David Sanger is a CNN political and national security analyst, and he's the author of the book, "New Cold Wars: China's Rise, Russia's invasion, and America's Struggle to Defend the West." And I understand you're joining me now from Munich. David, good to see you. What is going on here?
DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST, WHITE HOUSE AND NATIOANAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES: Good to see you, Ivan.
WATSON: Is -- thank you. Is the Trump administration considering sending troops to Ukraine to secure a peace deal or not? Can you untangle the seemingly completely contradictory messages we're hearing from top Trump administration officials?
SANGER: Well, the first answer to that question, Ivan, is I can't untangle it. I can tell you that I have rarely seen a more disorganized set of presentations to the allies by a new administration.
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Now, look, when you are new, you, you know, have a while takes to develop policy, and so you go out and you give speeches that basically leave options open. Instead, what they've done is they've sent people out who have gone out and made declarations of what policy will be that either contradicted their fellow members of the Trump national security team or backtracked. And Pete Hegseth was sort of in the lead here. He gave a very tough speech to the allies at a meeting of what's called the Ukraine Contact Group. It's basically the countries who are helping Ukraine. And his fundamental message, and this was Wednesday, was as we go into this, the Ukrainians should know they will never join NATO after this group has for three years been debating not the weather, but the wind that they might join. He said that the territory of Ukraine would not go back to the borders that existed before 2014 when the Russians took Crimea and then went -- and began to invade the Donbas so much more covertly than when the war broke out into full-fledged conflict three years ago.
And then the next day, he backed off of some of that. You just played some of that tape. And then Vice President Pence, who's giving a speech in a few hours here, said that the U.S. might well put troops in Ukraine if there was no deal. Well, Hegseth had just ruled that out. So, clearly, they are not coordinating.
WATSON: Yeah, it does appear that way. Um, an interesting way to go into a negotiation, I guess. Can I ask, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has now gone on the record saying that it's important that everything not go according to Russian President Vladimir Putin's plan. How is that looking so far?
SANGER: Well, so far, not great. If you -- if you actually did say that Ukraine would never enter NATO, and if you actually did say that Ukraine would gain a fair bit of the territory it has already taken, which is about 20% of the country, you've gotten two of the most important of Putin's demands given to Putin before they began negotiating. Even if you intended to end up there, it's not entirely clear why you would start off that way. The Europeans who I've seen since I arrived here yesterday morning have been outraged that the president would give away that kind of leverage.
But I think the bigger concern is who's at the table. The theme has always been, Ivan, nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine. And yet, initially, President Trump, in his statement about who would engage in the negotiations, talked about his own negotiating team and the Russians and nothing about the Ukrainians, which led Mr. Zelenskyy to say, I'm not signing or agreeing to anything to which I wasn't even a party.
So then, the president backtracked yesterday, to know the Ukrainians be involved in some big way, didn't make clear how, and other people will, too, presumably he meant the Europeans. Let's say it has not been a disciplined approach to the presentation.
WATSON: Are you hearing any signals or, you know, off-the-record background suggestions about what concessions the Trump administration might be looking for in a possible peace deal from the Kremlin?
SANGER: I have not so far, and they have not indicated so far what they would be. The president has defined his operational objective here as we want a deal. He has not said, in order to get a deal, we need X, Y and Z. And, of course, during the Biden administration, there was no negotiation going on with the Russians. And I think you could argue that may have been a mistake, that President Biden and President Putin never spoke after the invasion three years ago. They met in person only once in Geneva in 2021, before the war started.
So, I think the big question right now is, what does the United States, what does -- do the Ukrainians and what do the Europeans demand of Russia? And that's got to include some security guarantees to assure that Russia doesn't just use the time to regroup and then reinvade.
WATSON: Right.
[02:09:59]
Well, I know you're going to be watching closely the upcoming speeches there in Munich, and I'm sure we'll speak again this weekend. David Sanger in Munich, thank you so, so much.
Moving now to economic policy. President Trump has announced plans to impose sweeping reciprocal tariffs on all countries that export products to the U.S., and that could kick in as early as April. This move threatens to ignite a global trade war and further ramp up inflation as new costs will likely get passed on to consumers. The U.S. president admitted short-term price hikes were possible and warned Americans to prepare for short-term pain.
The new tariffs could have the biggest impact on developing countries like India, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who visited the White House on Thursday, vowed to work on a mutually beneficial trade agreement. Mr. Trump said the trade deficit in India's favor is a big problem.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: India has been, to us, just about the highest tariffed nation anywhere in the world. They've been very strong on tariffs. I don't blame them necessarily, but it's a different way of doing business. It's very hard to sell into India because they have trade barriers, very strong tariffs.
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WATSON: All right, let's bring in CNN's Will Ripley live from Taipei. Good to see you, Will. Bring us up to date. What has the reaction been in India to the threat of U.S. tariffs?
WILL RIPLEY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the timing of the announcement was certainly interesting to a lot of folks in Delhi and beyond because did Prime Minister Modi know that just hours after landing in Washington, that President Trump would be announcing these reciprocal tariffs, which would have a huge impact on India, which is United States is India's number one trading partner?
Their tariffs are very high, particularly on items like automobiles, where President Trump pointed out the tariffs are upwards of 70%. They used to be over 100% several years ago. So, India has brought the tear down somewhat, but President Trump saying, this time around, in the second term, with a much more organized and perhaps less patient administration, they're not just going to settle on pleasantries.
He and Prime Minister Modi clearly get along. They have a good relationship. They were complementing each other during this press conference. But on the India's side, they knew, landing in Washington, that they would have to bring something to the table, some deliverables to move this trade discussion forward. And it seemed like, during the press conference, the vibe was that that's what they were able to do.
President Trump was able to talk about selling massive amounts of oil and natural gas to India in the future, aiming to be India's number one supplier of energy. That's something that the previous Biden administration was reluctant to do because of partially environmental concerns.
Also, they talked about cooperating on the F-35 program, joint development and production, AI semiconductors, American-made nuclear reactors for generating energy, all things that will help to even out the trade deficit in the medium and long term, according to Modi and Trump, who stood at the podium there together.
And remarkably, Ivan, you know from reporting in India, it's very rare for Prime Minister Modi to take questions from reporters, but he did next to President Trump, which is a sign perhaps of how confident he was walking out of this, that he would be able to come home and save face despite the fact that these reciprocal tariffs, if they do kick in April and if they do hit certain sectors of the Indian economy, could take a real bite out of things. So, they're fast tracking these trade talks, hoping to try to work towards making some kind of a deal.
Also, importantly, I think, domestically, the announcement by President Trump, that Mumbai terror attack suspect, it has been held in the United States, surname is Rana, who is linked to the 2008 attacks, the fact that the Supreme Court has now given him the green light to be sent back to India to face justice, that's a huge symbolic of victory for Modi to take back home to his people.
WATSON: All right, very interesting to see these two leaders, side- by-side. Will Ripley live in Taipei, thank you so much. Still ahead, Hamas says it will release more hostages in Gaza. It comes after new signs show just how fragile the current ceasefire is. Stay with CNN.
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WATSON: Welcome back to the program. The fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas appears to be back on track after Hamas said it will release Israeli hostages this weekend as initially planned. Earlier this week, Hamas accused Israel of violating the truce and postponed the release of more hostages. In response, Israel said it would resume fighting in Gaza. After Hamas talked with key mediators, Egypt and Qatar, it said this week's hostage release will proceed. One Israeli official said it seems the dispute will be resolved and that Israeli leaders do not want to abandon the ceasefire agreement at this time.
Hamas has used the hostage releases as stage shows of force in Gaza. The group is tightly clinging to power despite more than 15 months of war with Israel. As CNN's Jeremy Diamond reports, Hamas's perseverance has become a bitter pill to swallow for an Israeli government aiming for total victory.
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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Week after week, Hamas has turned the spotlight of hostage releases into a choreographed show of force. Weapons brandished to the world, these militants delivering one clear message: We are undefeated.
For 15 months, Israel has unleashed the full weight of its military might in Gaza, deploying tens of thousands of ground troops while dropping millions of pounds of explosives from the air.
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And yet, amid the rubble, Hamas still standing, flaunting machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.
They said they defeated the resistance. Here is the resistance. The resistance doesn't die and is always in the field and present. Even if a far greater war comes towards us, we are ready, this man says. All these young children are ready. Give this child a rifle, and he is ready to fight.
At the funeral of one of Hamas's top military commanders, hundreds of militants parade through the streets, raising serious questions about Israel's strategy in this war.
What does it say, that after 15 months of war, these are still the pictures that we're seeing?
AMI AYALON, FORMER DIRECTOR, SHIN BET: What it means is very, very simple. We refuse to understand it, we refuse to accept it, and we refuse to understand that we are fighting a different type of war.
DIAMOND (voice-over): Ami Ayalon is the former director of the Shin Bet, Israel's domestic security service.
What you are saying is that these images of Hamas in Gaza should be a flashing red light --
AYALON: Yes.
DIAMOND: -- for the Israeli government to change strategy.
AYALON: It is.
DIAMOND (voice-over): Absolute victory over Hamas has been central to the Israeli prime minister's strategy since day one.
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, PRIME MINISTER OF ISRAEL: We will fight until we achieve victory, total victory. There is no substitute for it.
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DIAMOND (voice-over): And he is showing no signs of changing course, still reluctant to discuss a day after plan for Gaza or to allow a Palestinian alternative to Hamas to govern the Strip.
AYALON: It's the wrong strategy. In order to win Hamas, you have to create a reality in which Palestinians will not support Hamas. And Palestinians will not support Hamas only when they will see a better future without Hamas.
DIAMOND (voice-over): While some hold up Hamas's show of force as proof of Israel's strategic failure, others calling on the prime minister to double down.
ITAMAR BEN GVIR, FORMER ISRAELI NATIONAL SECURITY MINISTER (through translator): It's time for a massive war. It's time to stop the fuel, stop the humanitarian aid, stop the aid trucks. It's time to destroy Hamas.
DIAMOND (voice-over): But there is mounting evidence that Israel's assault on Gaza, which has killed tens of thousands of civilians, is backfiring, driving more Palestinians to take up arms.
ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: We assess that Hamas has recruited almost as many new militants as it has lost. That is a recipe for an enduring insurgency and perpetual war.
DIAMOND (voice-over): Hamas has faced some anger in Gaza, from a population drained by more than a year of war. The group now looking to build up its popularity amid the ceasefire.
We would like to salute the Palestinian people. Our resilient people persevered under the fire of the Zionist cowardly enemy, this militant says. Thank God for everyone's safety.
At a checkpoint until recently manned by Israeli soldiers, Hamas militants now stand guard. Police officers from the Hamas-run government now back on the streets, as Hamas officials seek to re- establish municipal services and show they can still govern Gaza.
Amid these shows of force, there is also a message to Palestinians in Gaza who would think to challenge Hamas, which has long silenced political dissent with a brute force. To them and the rest of the world, Hamas making clear it remains in power and will not surrender.
Jeremy Diamond, CNN, Tel Aviv.
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WATSON: Still ahead, a wave of layoffs and resignations. How Donald Trump's policies keep upending the U.S. government from the Justice Department to Veterans Affairs. That's coming up after the break.
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WATSON: Welcome back. I'm Ivan Watson in Hong Kong. The Trump administration has carried out more mass firings at U.S. federal agencies. CNN has learned that the Department of Energy and Veterans Affairs have fired scores of probationary workers. At the VA, more than 1,000 people were dismissed. And the International Revenue Service could be next. Sources say at least one member of Elon Musk's DOGE team has visited the IRS to evaluate workers. It's part of his efforts to downsize regulators, which critics say could benefit his businesses.
The U.S. Justice Department is facing a flurry of resignations. Several officials left their jobs after refusing to dismiss federal corruption charges against New York's mayor, Eric Adams. That includes the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Danielle Sassoon. She says Adams's attorneys -- quote -- "repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo to help President Trump on immigration if the case was dropped." The president claims he had nothing to do with the department's decision to axe the case against the mayor.
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UNKNOWN (voice-over): The U.S. attorney has resigned over the DOJ's request to drop the case into Eric Adams.
[02:30:02]
Did you personally request the Justice Department to drop that case?
TRUMP: No, I didn't. I know nothing about it.
That U.S. attorney was actually fired. I don't know if he or she resigned, but that U.S. attorney was fired.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
IVAN WATSON, CNN ANCHOR: For more on these sudden resignations, I spoke with CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein.
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RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: The woman who resigned. Danielle Sassoon is someone who comes out of impeccable conservative credentials. I mean, she clerked for Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, who was probably the patron saint of conservative legal minds. You know, for the last half century.
And she produced today an extraordinarily detailed and letter arguing that the pressure that came from the Justice Department, the order really that came from the Justice Department in Washington to drop this case was utterly improper in variance with the clear facts that they had established for the grand jury. And was, she argued, the product of essentially a deal between the New York mayor and the administration.
Now, you know, we have seen in the opening weeks of the Trump administration some extraordinary. Not only attempts, but in fact, efforts to politicize the workings of the Justice Department more overtly than we have, I think seen at least since Watergate. And this -- it might be a crystallizing moment, I think, for Republicans in Congress to simply ignore the gravity of what she is alleging and those others who resigned with her today would be an extraordinary dereliction of duty.
WATSON: We saw the disgraced former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, pardoned this week by President Trump. That comes after, you know, these are separate cases. January 6th rioters who were convicted, pardoned. Are you seeing a pattern there?
BROWNSTEIN: Yeah. Well, look, I mean, I think as I said, I mean, Trump is very clearly sending a signal that he intends to use the machinery of federal law enforcement to reward his friends and punish his enemies. I mean, in addition to the pardons of the January 6th and former governor Blagojevich.
And this dropping of the charges against Adams, you have had all of these steps under the, you know, under the guise of efficiency, under the rubric of efficiency through Elon Musk to hollow out aspects of federal consumer protection and other, other forms of oversight of business that Trump allies, including most prominently, object to. I mean, "The New York Times", noted it was almost three dozen active complaints that were under investigation by federal agencies that Musk is now trying to reshape.
So, yeah, I mean, I think you have a very clear pattern here.
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WATSON: That's CNN's Ron Brownstein there.
The White House blocked "The Associated Press", one of the world's largest news outlets, from attending Mr. Trump's news conference on Thursday. The White House objected to the "AP" continuing to use the name Gulf of Mexico in its stylebook. The agency's executive editor said in a statement, quote, it is a plain violation of the First Amendment, and we urge the Trump administration in the strongest terms to stop this practice.
This is now the third day that "AP" reporters have been barred from covering the president, first as a member of the pool and now from a formal press conference. And incredible disservice to the billions of people who rely on the "Associated Press" for nonpartisan news.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is now one of America's leading public health officials. Despite his controversial views on vaccines and public health policy, Kennedy was sworn in as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday, and he is vowing not to get rid of any vaccines. But he says that more research is needed.
Senator Mitch McConnell, a survivor of childhood polio, was the only Republican to vote against Kennedy's confirmation.
And with that, we will be right back after this break.
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[02:38:55]
WATSON: An astonishing Jonah moment captured on camera. A man kayaking in Chile was suddenly swallowed by a humpback whale. He was dragged into the water for several seconds before the whale let him go. The man told CNN he thought he would not make it, but then he felt his life vest pulling him up. It happened as he was kayaking with his father at a popular tourist destination on Saturday. Despite the terrifying moment, both said they would kayak again.
And in a neighborhood in Havana -- Havana, banana trees are sprouting through what started as a pothole. It all began when a water pipe burst. But after it was repaired, authorities neglected to pave the road. Fruit trees began to flourish.
You can see them there. And now, it's an urban garden. It reflects a larger crisis in Cuba's infrastructure. The transport ministry had acknowledged in 2024 that about 70 percent of national roads are in regular or poor condition.
Still, with food prices high, people aren't shy.
[02:40:00]
They do, in fact eat the bananas.
Thanks for joining us. I'm Ivan Watson in Hong Kong.
"WORLD SPORT" is up next, and then I'll be back in 15 minutes with more CNN NEWSROOM.
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