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Trump, Zelenskyy Trade Insults In Escalating War Of Words; Defense Secretary Orders Military To Prepare For Major Budget Cuts; No Ruling Yet On DOJ Push To Drop Corruption Charges Against Adams. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired February 20, 2025 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: And, of course, the other thing that's happening is that if his role is dialogue that dialogue is really happening in the public sphere now between Zelenskyy and Trump and it's breaking into quite a public rift here.

And now you even have this step, Sara Sidner, of J.D. Vance saying hey, if you talk that way to Trump you may not have -- you know, first of all, it's not going to end well for you. Second of all, you even have a veiled threat from Trump saying you may not have a country.

I mean, it's a breakdown in that communication channel, which raises questions about how -- you know, what Kellogg can accomplish there.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Yeah, it's a really good point.

When you look at the situation and you look back to what U.S. policy has been -- I mean, Trump is leaning towards Russia and away from --

SCIUTTO: Yeah.

SIDNER: -- some of its allies, including Europe. What's happening here?

SCIUTTO: We can't underestimate how big a shift Trump and other senior Trump administration officials are signaling here not just from Trump's latest comments parroting Russia's description of the war that it started in Ukraine but also going back to the Munich Security Conference. Because you see this administration signaling backing off not just U.S. support for Ukraine but U.S. support for Europe, saying to Europe, in effect, if you're not totally on your own you're much more on your own than you were before in terms of your own defense.

And then you step back from that, and you have the administration at least exploring what looks to be a grand bargain with Russia and perhaps China that would upset U.S. bipartisan support of a -- of a -- the international order going back to World War II, right? U.S. alliances standing up to dictators, et cetera.

It seems like Trump is exploring hey, maybe we can come to an agreement here where Russia -- you've got your sphere; China, you've got yours; I've got mine -- and we're not going to bother with these pesky alliances or defensive international borders or rule of law, et cetera.

It is -- now, whether that happens we'll only see over time. But at least the signals now point to something quite significant.

SIDNER: Yeah, and imagine being a wartime president and being told by the largest superpower that you have to have elections if you're a dictator.

SCIUTTO: Yeah.

SIDNER: Very precarious. And lest we forget -- I know you were there. I was there. When you look at what is happening in Ukraine there is a lot of fear on those people who are living with this war on the --

SCIUTTO: Yeah.

SIDNER: -- frontlines and who are seeing their homes destroyed in this war --

SCIUTTO: Yeah.

SIDNER: -- and lives taken. It's a lot to take in.

SCIUTTO: Stepped up -- those attacks -- those attacks have stepped up --

SIDNER: Yeah.

SCIUTTO: -- in the last several days right in the midst of all of this.

SIDNER: Yeah. All right. It's unprecedented.

Jim Sciutto, thank you so much. Appreciate it -- Kate.

SCIUTTO: Thanks.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: And joining us right now is Kurt Volker. He's a former U.S. ambassador to NATO and former U.S. special representative for Ukraine negotiations in the first Trump administration. Ambassador, it's good to see you again. Thank you for coming in.

What is your reaction to what we have heard --

KURT VOLKER, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO NATO, FORMER U.S. SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE FOR UKRAINE NEGOTIATIONS IN FIRST TRUMP ADMINISTRATION (via Webex by Cisco): Thank you, Kate.

BOLDUAN: -- from -- between President Zelenskyy? And most specifically, I'm interested in your reaction to President Trump's words about Zelenskyy in the last 24 hours. VOLKER: Yeah, it's really striking. It is such a divergence from what Trump himself said just on his first full day in office if you remember that tweet on January 21. He said that Putin needs to stop the war. That it should never have happened and that he's prepared to escalate with sanctions if he doesn't. And now he launches this tweet where he doesn't mention Russia at all.

The real dictator in the room here is Vladimir Putin who has been in power for 25 years, not Zelenskyy. And it is Russia that launched this unprovoked invasion against Ukraine, not the other way around.

So very, very -- very, very strange and divergent from where Trump himself was.

BOLDUAN: You're saying something very similar to what we saw Nikki Haley put out last night -- the former U.N. ambassador in the first Trump administration -- where she wrote, "These are classic Russian talking points. Exactly what Putin wants."

I won't ask you to get into the president's mind, but everyone wonders why President Trump is repeating these talking points. But how does this advance American interests?

VOLKER: Yeah. Well, first off, I think that there is probably a lot of pique at President Zelenskyy because Zelenskyy pushed back on some things. And, you know, Trump just always wants to push for what he's trying to achieve.

And when he had J.D. Vance at Munich. And then there was some reaction to that he gave Zelenskyy an ultimatum on minerals that was really very one-sided and very poorly written, and Zelenskyy rejected that and made some counterproposals.

[07:35:05]

So I think -- and then he said that Trump was living in a disinformation space.

So I all of those things created to this sense of pique from Trump that he wanted to lash out.

But does that really advance American interests, as you are asking? I think it doesn't because ultimately what we need to do is get to a place where we have an end to the war in Ukraine, as Trump has said many, many times. We have a prevention of future war, meaning there's a deterrent effect in place again so Putin doesn't attack again. And that we shift more of the burdens to our European allies so we don't have to carry as much, which they're not going to do because they are very, very unhappy.

So I think this is getting a little bit off track and I -- and I hope that over the coming days, especially as the teams regather in Washington -- Rubio and Waltz from Saudi Arabia and Kellogg from Ukraine -- that this all gets in front of the president and we can start looking at how to achieve the base with the ceasefire, the deterrents, and burden sharing. BOLDUAN: I want to play two things. The way the president himself -- President Trump talked about Ukraine's territory yesterday, and the way he also talked about it just days earlier on Sunday. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Zelenskyy better move fast or he's not going to have a country left. Gotta move. Gotta move fast.

REPORTER: Do you think he wants the whole of Ukraine or just a -- like, what do you think he wants in terms of territory?

TRUMP: No. I think he wants to stop. That was my question to him. Because if he's going to go on that would have been a big problem for us. And that would have caused me a big problem because you just can't let that happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: This gets right to your point, Ambassador. Sunday it was a problem if Putin went on and took more territory. Wednesday it becomes Zelenskyy's problem. That does really sound like a shift.

VOLKER: Yes.

BOLDUAN: I've heard some say that they fear that what we're looking at is the most significant geopolitical realignment since World War II. Do you think that's what this is?

VOLKER: Yeah. I think it's premature to put labels on like that.

I think what you have approaching Russia is a push and a pull. He's putting pressure on Putin. He's telling him to stop and he's trying to attract him by dangling some carrots like better bilateral relations. And then he's irritated with Zelenskyy so he's trying to push at Zelenskyy as well. And I think he's hoping all of this comes together in some kind of deal.

But one of the things that he said -- I thought what you were going to play was his comment about how Ukraine is virtually destroyed. Cities are on their sides and so forth.

BOLDUAN: Um-hum.

VOLKER: That is simply not true. Ukraine is very vibrant. I'm going there this weekend. It is possible to go there. It's safe. The economy is booming. There are people stuck in traffic jams every day because they're going to work every day. It is -- it is not the disaster zone that he described.

BOLDUAN: As a diplomat, how do you deal with this today? How do you get things back on track? Because this is -- what we're looking at, it's a real mess and it's scaring a lot of people. VOLKER: Yeah. You have to focus on the substantive outcome that we need to get to and what it will take to get there. If you want to end the war in Ukraine, as President Trump truly does -- I believe that he wants to end it -- you've got to convince Putin that the costs are too high. Putin doesn't want to end the war. Putin wants to use the war to take over Ukraine. We have to convince him that the costs of that are too high.

So that means keeping the sanctions in place, driving down energy prices, threatening new sanctions, and making sure that Ukraine has the arms that it needs so that Putin can't advance. That's just going to drain the Russian economy and the Russian military so that we try to get Putin to that point.

And meanwhile, then you have to work with the European allies to get the deterrents force in place once there's a ceasefire so that Putin doesn't attack again.

Those are the basics. That's what we have to get back to.

BOLDUAN: Back to the basics in the world of this is anything but basic is what we're looking at.

Ambassador Kurt Volker, it's always good to see you.

VOLKER: Yeah.

BOLDUAN: Thank you for coming in -- John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. New this morning Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is ordering the military to draw up plans for an eight percent budget cut for each of the next five years. This seems a pretty quick reversal from just a few days ago when he seemed to urge an increase in defense spending.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Well, I think the U.S. needs to spend more than the Biden administration was willing to -- who historically underinvested in the capabilities of our military. Listen, any defense secretary would be lying if they said they didn't want more. You always want more. But we live in fiscally constrained times where we need to be responsible with taxpayer dollars. We're $37 trillion in debt. That's a national security liability as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right, let's get right to CNN national security correspondent Natasha Bertrand at the Pentagon. I mean, that was a few days ago.

[07:40:00]

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: It's really unclear what's happened here in terms of this shift, John. But I will note the one thing that has changed in the last week is that DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, has showed up at the Pentagon and is trying to streamline cuts not only to the workforce but also to the Pentagon budget.

But this plan essentially would cut eight percent every single year from the Pentagon budget over the next five years, and that would amount to tens and tens of billions of dollars per year cut from the Pentagon budget.

Now, these proposals for where they can actually find cuts within the budget are due by February 24, essentially giving the entire military about a week to figure out what they can cut that would be satisfactory to the secretary of defense and the president.

But border security, notably, is exempt from this -- of course, something that has been a top priority for the Trump administration.

Now, in this memo that we obtained from Secretary of Defense Hegseth, he said, "I ask that the military departments and DOD components resource the capabilities and readiness necessary for a wartime tempo and offset those requirements with low-impact items, such as wasteful DEI and climate change programs."

Now, as I said, this memo comes as Trump and DOGE are initiating a major effort to shrink the federal government. That includes the Pentagon.

But, of course, as you mentioned, it's also a major disconnect not only from Hegseth's comments just from last week but also from a House budget plan that President Trump actually endorsed recently that would increase defense spending by about $100 billion.

And needless to say the U.S., at the same time, is asking our NATO and European allies to massively increase their own defense spending.

So clearly, this is going to probably get some pushback from congressional Republicans who also have pushed for increased military spending repeatedly over the last several years, John.

BERMAN: Yeah. I mean, it's a huge cognitive disconnect. I mean, it's an outright contradiction in some cases.

What are you hearing from inside the Pentagon itself?

BERTRAND: Well, inside the Pentagon the concern now largely has to do with the mass firings that we are expected to see as soon as this week, firing probationary civilian employees across the federal -- across the Pentagon. And that could start as soon as today we're told.

But one of the main issues that we are told defense officials have been raising to their superiors is this question of whether these firings could actually run afoul of the law. This has to do with Title 10, Section 129a of the U.S. Code -- little known but very important -- which governs civilian personnel management in the armed forces.

And it says, "The secretary of defense may not reduce the civilian workforce programmed full-time equivalent levels unless the secretary conducts an appropriate analysis of the impacts of such readiness (sic) on workload, military force structure, lethality, readiness, operational effectiveness, stress on the military force, and fully burdened costs."

So essentially, a longwinded way of saying the secretary of defense has to do an analysis of how these massive cuts are going to potentially impact military readiness before they can actually move forward with that. A senior defense official told me that so far, no such analysis has actually been done.

So raising a lot of questions here about whether this could run afoul of rules and impact U.S. military readiness, John.

BERMAN: This bears watching. I am sure many Republicans in Congress are very interested as well.

Natasha Bertrand, thank you very much -- Sara.

SIDNER: Things could get spicey. All right.

Air traffic controllers are already stressed to the max and understaffed, and now DOGE is in the building at the FAA and looking to cut costs, including meeting with air traffic controllers. But what will that mean for them?

CNN's Pete Muntean explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: The FAA's overarching goal is keeping flying safe, so it was an agency considered immune to possible government efficiency cuts. But I was given an internal memo from the acting head of the FAA and in it he says so-called special government employees from Elon Musk's SpaceX have been deployed to the FAA to "engineer solutions" to what he calls the agency's challenges. No doubt that they are numerous.

And the FAA is facing a major shortage of air traffic controllers, many of them working mandatory six-day weeks of 10-hour shifts.

In fact, DOGE employees already met with some of them this week. We know from the memo that this DOGE team toured the FAA command center in Warrenton, Virginia; also Potomac TRACON. That's the air traffic control center responsible for the airspace around Washington, D.C.

It is that facility that handled American Eagle flight 4519 just before it was handed off to the control tower at Reagan National Airport. That midair collision happened three weeks ago.

The FAA has made changes to the helicopter flights over D.C. for the foreseeable future, but it has not announced any major regulatory shifts since that crash.

The acting head of the FAA, Chris Rocheleau, was appointed to the job in the hours after that crash. And in this new memo he insists that FAA workers who have already been fired by the Trump administration are not considered critical to safety.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said 400 were let go on Friday, but Duffy says that's out of a total of 45,000 FAA employees. He underscores that all were considered probationary, which means they were hired less than a year ago.

[07:45:05]

But even still, the union that represents many of these workers tells me this is a huge blow to an air travel ecosystem already being stressed to the max.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BOLDUAN: Pete, thank you so much for that.

So the court hearing that everyone seemed to be waiting for before they had an opinion about Eric Adams -- the one on DOJ's directive to dismiss the case against the New York City mayor -- well, that hearing ended without a decision. And the justice official pushing all of this says anyone who disagrees with dropping the charges can quit. We've got more on that.

And we have a new update on Pope Francis battling pneumonia in both lungs.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL)

[07:50:35]

BOLDUAN: This morning we have another update on Pope Francis. The Vatican giving this health update on the pontiff saying that he spent another peaceful night in the hospital and was able to get up and eat breakfast in an armchair. The 88-year-old is being treated for double pneumonia and has been in the hospital since Friday.

Now, we also have word of the FBI saying two teenage girls have been arrested in Texas for allegedly plotting an attack on a Houston high school. Now, according to authorities, the girls planned to place pipe bombs around the school and then shoot panicking students. Neither of the girls were current students at the school.

The sheriff's office said the investigation stemmed from online threats uncovered and that they arrested the girls within 30 minutes of learning of the plot. Police say now there is no longer a threat to the school or its students.

The 86-year-old man who just days ago pleaded guilty to shooting 16- year-old Ralph Yarl -- that man has died. The case renewed the national debate about gun policies and race in the United States. Andrew Lester was charged in 2023 for shooting Yarl, a Black student -- a Black kid -- this Black young teenager who simply rang the man's doorbell by mistake. Yarl is now a freshman at Texas A&M University. His family says that he is "doing his best to be OK." -- Sara. SIDNER: All right. This morning the pressure is on after a judge ended a high-stakes hearing yesterday without an immediate decision on whether to accept the DOJ's decision to drop the corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

Acting deputy attorney general Emil Bove told the judge that dropping the corruption charges would "interfere" with Adams' ability to govern New York City and threaten President Donald Trump's immigration policies.

Joining us now for more perspective is Carl Heastie, the speaker of the New York State Assembly. Thank you, sir, for being here this morning.

Do you want Mayor Adams to resign, or should voters decide that in November?

CARL HEASTIE, (D) SPEAKER, NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY (via Webex by Cisco): Well, where I am -- and good morning to you, Sara, and thank you for having me on.

Where I'm -- I'm at a heightened sense of concern. And I think what's going on with Mayor Adams is more of a symptom of the overall issue or disease with the Justice Department and the fact that they want to dismiss these charges without prejudice, which means they can kind of hold these charges over the -- the potential to hold these charges over the mayor and the city's head. And that's really where this is.

In my history I've never been one to really call on people to resign. I didn't ask Governor Cuomo to resign. I usually let that be a matter of their conscience and their self-inflection and what they feel with their constituency. So I would say where I am now is a very heightened sense of concern.

SIDNER: Leaning towards asking him to resign?

HEASTIE: Well, again, we want to see what the judge says. And overturning the will of the voters is something that's very serious, so I'm not there yet about him being removed or resigning.

SIDNER: All right, let me ask you about this because Governor Kathy Hochul has indicated that she --

HEASTIE: Um-hum.

SIDNER: -- will wait herself, as you are doing, for the judge's decision before she decides whether to remove Mayor Adams from office, which she is empowered to do.

What do you think she'll do, and are you concerned, as you just mentioned, about removing someone who the voters put in office?

HEASTIE: Right. It's not something that's taken -- that should be taken lightly. It's unprecedented for a governor to remove a sitting mayor who was, you know, voted in. She's not taking this lightly. She's taking it very seriously. And in

my discussions with her she has the same level of concern about the potential of the city of New York being held hostage by the Justice Department. But I think she'll take her time, and I believe she'll end up doing what's right.

SIDNER: I want to ask you about something that Donald Trump posted -- if we can put up what he posted about New York City saying basically that he is saving New York City because he is killing the congestion pricing that was put into place to try to lower the amount of traffic in New York. And he said, "Long live the king!" And then later the POTUS posted an image of himself with a crown on his head.

[07:55:10]

Look, the congestion pricing has not been popular with generally most drivers, including taxis and Ubers. What do you make of this president's decision to push the DOT to decide not to approve this -- to go back on what it initially approved?

HEASTIE: Well, I'm hoping that the decision will be turned over in the courts. He supposedly is a president that believes in state's rights, but he is now denying the state and the city of New York the ability to have -- to govern its own transportation system. And this potentially could blow a hole -- a $16 billion hole in the MTA's capital plan. And so I've said if this is to happen, I hope that him and the Republican members of Congress are ready to send a $16 billion check to New York.

I think this was more for theater. Congestion pricing is working, and I think at some point people will see that. We do need the money for the MTA.

But this is the problem of electing Donald Trump. He doesn't have to face the voters again. Whatever he says he wants. He's governing by executive order and he's daring people to take him to court. That's not how the American government should be operating, but this is what we have.

SIDNER: Do you think he's acting like a king?

HEASTIE: I think he's acting like a dictator, yes.

SIDNER: Carl Heastie, strong words this morning. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you coming on -- John.

BERMAN: All right. This morning almost 100 million people are under cold weather alerts as temperatures are expected to plunge more than 40 degrees below normal.

Let's get right to CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam for the latest on this. Ooh, a lot of minus signs there.

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, a lot of purple as well. Good morning, John. So this is a significant cold not only for the places that typically

get cold in the month of February but for unordinary areas like Atlanta -- places like Dallas and Houston. Thirty to 40 degrees below where they should be this time of year at this very moment.

That's why authorities are using this rule of the four Ps: protect your plants, your people, your pets, and your pipes. So you've got to keep all those things in mind today because this is impacting areas that are not used to this type of weather.

And yes, records are falling, particularly across the northern and central parts of our country. Just check out Wichita, Kansas City, Oklahoma City, and Dallas -- all this morning very alone setting their record low temperature for the day.

So here's the 100 million Americans. Not many people spared from these cold weather alerts. And notice they go all the way to the Gulf Coast as well. Even the Florida Panhandle, for instance.

So we're waking up to temperatures feeling like the single digits in Nashville, Cincinnati, and Detroit. And I identify that area because we still have the potential for more record lows as we head into Friday morning. But remember, we've had the flooding in Kentucky from the first storm this past weekend.

And then the temperatures are going to a reversal -- kind of a flip as we head into the early parts of next week. So the snow that fell -- that fell from the sky across the Ohio River Valley -- it piled up over half a foot in some locations across Kentucky. Well, guess what? That's going to all melt and the rivers are still cresting, particularly across the Ohio River and into its tributaries and streams. So that water has got to go somewhere, and it will continue to add more misery into the localized flooding that is still ongoing across the region.

Just look at Louisville. It will top above the freezing mark by the weekend and into the 50s by the early parts of next week. So quite the reversal -- John.

BERMAN: Talk to me more about these cold temperatures and the four Ps, Derek. You had me nervous there. Thankfully, when you got to four it was pipes. But how long --

VAN DAM: (Laughing).

BERMAN: In some of these places that aren't expecting it in the south -- like, how long will it last?

VAN DAM: Yeah. So I give it another two days before that reversal really actually takes place. So I think as we head into Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday we're going to get the break from the arctic blast. Notice the purples and the blues being replaced by more of the oranges and the yellows. That's representative of a milder air mass and that's going to change the game for us here in, like, Atlanta, places like Houston, as well as Dallas, and even for you in New York City. BERMAN: All right, Derek Van Dam for us. Thank you very much. Everyone take care of your --

VAN DAM: The four Ps.

BERMAN: -- pipes.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

BOLDUAN: Taking the temperature of the American people. There is brand new CNN polling out just this morning. President Trump's approval rating is slipping. Why? Maybe look no further than the economy and what he has not yet done.

And a critical meeting today in Kyiv between Ukrainian President Zelenskyy and Donald Trump's Ukraine envoy made all the more important after Trump parrots Russian propaganda.